Sen. Rand Paul says the gold stored at Fort Knox is still there after getting a firsthand look inside the heavily secured Treasury Department facility in Kentucky.
Paul visited Fort Knox on Monday and posted a video from outside the military installation, which is located roughly 40 miles southwest of Louisville.
“I’m at Fort Knox. We’ve come to see the gold. Our country has about 147 million ounces of gold, and about half of it is stored here at Fort Knox,” Paul said before entering the facility.
The Kentucky senator said his visit was about more than simply verifying that the gold reserves remained in place. He also used the occasion to raise concerns about inflation, federal spending and the long-term decline in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.
“We’re going to be going deep underground to see the gold, but more importantly, we’re going to be talking about what happened to the dollar when we separated from gold in 1971,” Paul said. “Over 85 percent of the value of the dollar has been lost since we de-linked from gold.”
For much of U.S. history, the dollar had a formal connection to gold. That changed during President Richard Nixon’s administration, when the United States ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold in 1971. The country ultimately moved fully into a fiat currency system, meaning the dollar is no longer backed by a fixed amount of physical gold.
I visited Fort Knox today.
The dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power since the Fed opened in 1913. $100 then is worth just over $3,300 today.
This is no accident. Congress spends without limit, while the Fed prints the difference. https://t.co/TmeJw3ZkJv
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) August 10, 2026
Supporters of the gold standard often argue that tying currency to a limited physical asset can restrain governments from rapidly increasing the money supply. Critics, however, say such restrictions can make it harder for governments and central banks to respond to recessions and other economic crises.
Paul argued that today’s concerns about affordability are closely tied to inflation and government borrowing.
“The media now calls this affordability, but what it really is is inflation,” he said.
Paul pointed to the federal deficit and the Federal Reserve as major contributors to rising prices.
“We run a debt. As the deficit runs up — $2 trillion a year — part of that debt is bought by the Federal Reserve with newly created dollars,” he said. “This leads to inflation, and prices are up.”
He added that prices have risen significantly over the past several years and blamed the increase in part on deficit spending and repeated failures to balance the federal budget.
After touring the facility, Paul returned to social media with a straightforward answer to one of the questions surrounding Fort Knox.
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! We want to know if it’s still there. https://t.co/aEBXK1CfD6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025
“Yes, the gold is there, all (approximately) 147 million ounces,” he wrote.
Paul said the size of the stockpile was impressive, but he again emphasized what he believes the gold represents in the larger debate over monetary policy.
“The dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power since the Fed opened in 1913,” Paul wrote, arguing that excessive congressional spending and expansion of the money supply have steadily reduced the dollar’s value.
Paul had sought access to Fort Knox well before the visit. He previously sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in February 2025 requesting a tour of the facility.
Questions about the gold reserves also received renewed attention in early 2025, when Elon Musk publicly suggested that the holdings at Fort Knox should be audited while his Department of Government Efficiency initiative was reviewing federal operations.
At Fort Knox, we’ve come to see the gold!
Our country has about a hundred and forty-seven million ounces of gold, and about half of it is stored here at Fort Knox.
We’re gonna be going deep underground to see the gold, but more importantly, we’re gonna be talking today about… pic.twitter.com/qNtHkVMQzg
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) August 10, 2026
“Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?” Musk wrote at the time. “Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not. That gold is owned by the American public.”
President Donald Trump also publicly discussed the issue in February 2025, telling reporters that he wanted to verify that the gold remained at Fort Knox.
Fort Knox holds the largest share of the U.S. government’s gold reserves, but it is not the only major federal storage site. The U.S. Mint facility at West Point, New York, also holds tens of millions of ounces of gold, along with other precious-metal reserves.
