WASHINGTON — Where’s Bob Menendez when you need him?
President Trump said Wednesday night that he and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would find out if Fort Knox’s famous gold bars have gone missing as they continue an ongoing review of federal assets and spending.
“We’re going to go into Fort Knox to make sure the gold is there. You know that? We’re going to go into Fort Knox,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
“We do want to look. I mean, we hope everything’s fine with Fort Knox, but we’re gonna go to Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, and make sure the gold is there.”
Trump added: “If the gold isn’t there, we’re gonna be very upset.”
The Fort Knox Bullion Depository’s vaults in north-central Kentucky contain 147.3 million ounces of gold — more than half of the Treasury Department’s gold reserves, according to officials.
If that accounting is correct, the repository should have the equivalent of nearly 370,000 standard-sized gold bars.
Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, was traveling aboard the presidential jet with Trump as he returned to Washington from a speech to Saudi investors in Miami Beach, but did not address reporters in the plane’s rear press cabin.
Trump indicated he was open to another Musk idea Wednesday, saying he was considering giving taxpayers a 20% dividend after DOGE completes its work, which aims to trim $1 trillion in annual expenses.
The world’s richest man is spearheading Trump’s attempt to dramatically downsize the federal bureaucracy and had for days floated the possibility that Fort Knox might not actually hold as much gold as authorities claim.
“Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?” the DOGE leader tweeted Monday. “Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not.”
Musk also posted Monday: “It would be cool to do a live video walkthrough of Fort Knox!”
Fort Knox has held much of the nation’s gold reserves since 1937, with most of the public knowing of the stash via the plot of the 1964 James Bond film “Goldfinger.”
Some Republicans have objected to the strict secrecy of the facility.
“As a U.S. [sic] senator I’ve tried repeatedly to get into Fort Knox,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote Monday on X.
“Fort Knox: ‘You can’t come to Fort Knox.’ Me: ‘Why?’ Fort Knox: ‘It’s a military installation.’ Me: ‘I’m a senator; I go to military bases all the time.’ Fort Knox: ‘You still can’t come. Because, you can’t.’”
Lee’s former colleague, Menendez, earned the nickname “Gold Bar Bob” when authorities found 13 of them in his home during a 2022 corruption raid. He is scheduled to begin an 11-year prison term June 6 after being convicted of trading favors for foreign governments and businessmen in exchange for cash, bullion and a luxury car, among other items.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has tried to tamp down speculation about Fort Knox.
“We do an audit every year,” Bessent said Wednesday in an interview with Wisconsin radio host Dan O’Donnell. “All the gold is present and accounted for.”
