Trump is instructing the Treasury to stop making new pennies

• Trump said on Sunday that he's ordered the Treasury to stop producing new pennies.
• Trump, in his post on Truth Social, called the production of pennies "wasteful."
• "Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," he wrote.

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to halt the production of new pennies.

"For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

"Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," he added.

Trump's announcement comes weeks after Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, criticized the costs of making pennies.

DOGE said in an X post on January 22 that producing pennies "cost US taxpayers over $179 million" in fiscal year 2023.

This wouldn't be the first time Washington has tried to stop minting pennies.

In 2017, Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Sen. John McCain of Arizona introduced a bill that would have suspended the production of new pennies for a decade. The bill did not move forward.