Musk and Trump’s Visit to Fort Knox Centers on Bitcoin
Can a President create money from nothing? In theory, yes. Recently, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been discussing Fort Knox, the famous U.S. location where the country stores its gold reserves. They have both mentioned plans to visit Fort Knox soon to check if the gold is still there. According to them, it seems they want to investigate if anyone has stolen the gold. However, the real reason for their interest might be something less sensible and more risky: they likely intend to use the gold to set up a Bitcoin reserve.
The idea that Fort Knox might be missing gold has gained traction among some conspiracy theorists, particularly on social media. Trump and Musk appear to enjoy these theories. During a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on February 24, Trump expressed his concerns about the gold possibly being stolen. He stated, “We’re actually going to Ft Knox to see if the gold is there. Because maybe somebody stole the gold. Tons of gold.” Musk has also shared posts on social media about the topic from time to time.
However, it’s highly probable that the gold is indeed at Fort Knox. There’s a substantial amount of it, and it’s nearly impossible for anyone to take it without raising alarms. In the past, only a few authorized groups have been allowed to inspect the vaults. President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited in 1943, Congress and journalists toured the site in 1974, and during Trump’s presidency, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin visited in 2017, even taking photos with gold bars.
The 1943 visit by Roosevelt is particularly important because it may shed light on how America could use its gold to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, even though that idea is fundamentally unwise. Nathan Tankus, who has written about this topic extensively, describes the Fort Knox visit as “a scam built atop an accounting gimmick wrapped in nonsense.”
The notion is that the President has the power to set the price of the country’s gold. Roosevelt exercised this authority back in 1934 after the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. At that time, the official price of gold was $20.67 per ounce, but Roosevelt declared it was worth $35. This adjustment created over $2.8 billion, which was largely just accounting magic, enabling him to invest in important institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
When Trump and Musk visit Fort Knox, they will find around 5,000 tons of gold, which is currently valued at about $42 per ounce. However, the market price could be as high as $2,800 per ounce. With a simple decision, Trump could alter the valuation of U.S. gold, adding hundreds of billions to the Treasury’s assets. This power has been confirmed by the Supreme Court, which supported Roosevelt’s actions during his time.
Now, what could they do with such a massive influx of cash, around $800 billion? The proposal is to invest that money in Bitcoin. The idea of adjusting the gold price to fund a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has been discussed for some time. Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced legislation last summer called the BITCOIN Act, which aimed to allow the Treasury to issue new gold certificates based on current market prices and then use those certificates to buy Bitcoin.
Is it possible this plan could come to fruition? It certainly could. We are living in unusual and unpredictable times. The President is suggesting he will take one of the richest people in the world to Fort Knox, and perhaps when they arrive, they will announce that the gold is very much intact, possibly even more plentiful than expected.
