🌊 Why Trump Wants Access to Fort Knox

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At the heart of America’s financial system sits a massive accounting anomaly: The gold in Fort Knox is valued at just $42.22 per ounce, a price set in 1973. But in today’s market, gold is trading at nearly $3,000 per ounce. If revalued, Fort Knox’s 147M ounces of gold could be worth over $750B, rather than the $11B currently recorded on government books. 

This gaping discrepancy has sparked renewed calls for an audit and a potential revaluation – especially now that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are demanding to see the gold for themselves.

In recent weeks, Musk has taken to social media to question whether the Fort Knox reserves are still intact, even suggesting a live-streamed inspection of the vault: "Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox? Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not. That gold is owned by the American public!" he tweeted.

Trump quickly joined in, stating: "We're going to go to Fort Knox…to make sure the gold is there” and vowing to physically inspect the reserves. His comments immediately raised the stakes, putting pressure on government officials to respond.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has reassured the public that the gold is accounted for. But Musk and Trump’s comments have ignited a bigger conversation – not just about whether the gold is there, but whether its value should finally be updated to reflect reality.

In today’s deep-dive we explore why the gold is undervalued, the arguments for and against changing that, and what could happen if Trump does so.

Editor’s Note

We hope you had nice weekends. Should the US revalue the gold? Or is that a slippery slope? Let us know your thoughts by replying here.

Also, if you missed our weekend on-the-ground reports, they’re available below:

• Our Saturday report after spending time with the AFD 

• Our Sunday report from the “secret societies” of Sierra Leone

There was a lot of news over the weekend: Germany held elections, Trump fired several military leaders and demoted the head of ICE, Zelensky offered to resign – we’ll dive into it all here this week. In the meantime, you’ll get the brief updates in the Current, our free daily newsletter, at 11 AM EST.

See you then and thanks for reading.

–Max and Max