by Jim Rickards, Daily Reckoning:

Whatever happened to the Donald Trump and Elon Musk visit to Fort Knox?

You’ll recall the buzz from earlier this year. Trump and Musk loudly announced they were going to visit the U.S. bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky to make sure the U.S. gold was actually there. The press was invited to tag along. Musk claimed that his DOGE team was ready to “audit” the gold bars to see that there were none missing. I had my own views on the announcement (described below) but I certainly agreed this would be the mother of all photo ops.

For the record, the U.S. Treasury holds 8,133.5 metric tonnes of gold in the U.S. reserve position. Slightly less than half of this gold is stored in Fort Knox. The remainder is mostly stored in a secure vault at West Point, New York. The exact location of that vault is classified although I happen to know where it is. A small amount is held at the Denver Mint for coinage purposes. Legally the U.S. Treasury owns the gold reserve, but I point out that the U.S. Army actually controls it since almost all of the gold is stored on two Army bases – Fort Knox and West Point.