Fort Knox: What is this gold reserve that Donald Trump wants to have verified?

They've revived an old conspiracy theory. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are taking a close look at Fort Knox, the United States' ultra-secure gold reserve . The American president has announced that Elon Musk will soon go there to make sure the gold is still there, as reported by American media outlet CBS News .

"We're going to open the gates. We're going to inspect Fort Knox," Donald Trump said on Thursday, February 20.

"I don't want to open it and find the cupboards are empty," he added.

Earlier this week, it was Elon Musk who had published several tweets on the subject. "Who confirms that the gold was not stolen from Fort Knox?" he wrote on Monday. "Maybe it is, maybe it is not." "It would be cool to do a live video tour of Fort Knox!" he added. The richest man in the world thus took up a conspiracy theory that is several decades old.

Asked about the matter, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured that the gold reserves were intact. "We do an audit every year. All the gold is there and accounted for," he assured.

According to theU.S. Mint , the gold reserves currently stored at Fort Knox total 147.3 million ounces, or more than 4,175 tons and worth more than $400 billion at current exchange rates. That would be about half of the U.S. reserves. Only very small amounts have been taken to test the purity of the gold during regular audits, the Mint said. Other than those samples, no gold has been transferred to or from the repository for many years, the institution said.

While the audits are conducted by authorized Fort Knox personnel, the last time unauthorized people visited the Kentucky site was in 2017, when Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and congressional representatives toured the vaults.

They were first opened to civilians in 1974 to quell rumors that the gold had been removed from the vaults. Fort Knox allowed a group of journalists and a congressional delegation to come and see for themselves.