Following the Yellow Brick Audit

News feeds are on fire with commentary on whether the 4,580 tons of gold bullion stored at Fort Knox still exists. Over the last two days, secrecy surrounding the U.S. gold reserves has caught the attention of Elon Musk, after his interaction with the account ZeroHedge, and a call out to DOGE and Musk from political commentator Mario Nawfal, blew it up for the world to see on X. America’s newly formed DOGE - who is making auditing of agencies into a game of sorts - has been doing the rounds on all government departments. Scottsdale Mint CEO Josh Phair who broke news weeks ago about gold being repatriated to the US in record form from Europe, was one of the first to raise the recent discussion for a Fort Knox audit.

The last official audit for Fort Knox was in 1974 – infamously known as the ‘show audit’ where politicians and reporters posed with gold bars for photographers and were allowed to peek briefly inside. Before that, the last major audit was in 1953. By this point, there had already been considerable pressure building to open the vault for civilian inspection to prove what the Fort held. And considering the gold belonged to the people - taken forcibly by the US government in 1933 - they had every right to know.

The whistle has been blown on Fort Knox’s gold stores since. Ed Durell spent 14 years of his life writing to over 1000 government and banking officials trying to get answers to how much Fort Knox gold was left and how much was gone; Edith Roosevelt – granddaughter of Teddy Roosevelt - petitioned the government about the gold stores in a 1975 edition of the Hampshire Sunday news; and President Ronald Reagan appointed a Gold Commission in 1982 to investigate the situation and report to Congress their findings. No one in Congress has been able to view the gold in 50 years.

Senator Ron Paul who has been working for years to get an audit of the Federal Reserve and was on Reagan’s Gold Commission, detailed in a speech currently going viral online that 15 of the 17 members of the then commission voted against auditing the gold. He is captured in a brilliant photo in the 70s with a demonstration of simulated ‘gold bricks’ on the back of a truck – a stunt to try to gain access to the vault to audit the reserves. In his words: ‘The gold should be in the hands of the people – you should be buying gold and holding gold.’

Speculation and theories have formed in response to the years of secrecy and lack of transparency about these gold holdings – that it has been sold, has been involved in gold swaps with foreign governments and bullion banks, rehypothecated or even been replaced with gold-plated tungsten – theories that the US Treasury and Mint have dismissed or ignored rather than addressing them and providing substantive information to counter them. Republican Senator Rand Paul who is also calling for government transparency and an immediate auditing of Fort Knox, now seems to have the support of Musk. Add that to a growing online chorus over the last 2 days as the public wakes up to the fact that 50 years have passed without anyone so much as seeing the gold or any having serious questions about it being answered.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, it has taken someone such as Musk, who has a big enough presence and is seemingly invested in exposing financial misconduct, to listen to the calls and draw attention to the absolute lack of transparency from the US government - that we may finally see an audit of the Knox gold. Musk posted only hours ago – ‘It would be cool to do a live video walkthrough of Fort Knox!’ Goldfinger GIFs and memes ensued, as did a sizable buildup about the DOGE team auditing Fort Knox in real time for the public to see.

It's amusing to consider that the gold reserves in Fort Knox have been without an audit since Ainslie has been in business. Ainslie customers can most assuredly take comfort in the fact that our gold is physically present in our vaults, backed ounce for ounce and that we can deliver on each of those ounces for every customer that we custody for.

If Fort Knox is empty, or the US owns far less gold than they say they do, it would trigger financial shock for the entire economic landscape and spark a catastrophic crisis of confidence in the US government, a tidal wave for the markets that no legacy media would be unable to deflect. Online discussion is on fire as we all wonder whether this could truly be possible if we can finally find out if the gold remains there - and if not - what has happened to it. The DOGE team will undoubtedly do what they seem to be gaining a reputation for - busting down the doors of government departments and getting right to the business following paper trails and firing federal employees.