Trump’s Insane Pentagon Name-Change Likely to Cost Taxpayers $2 Billion

President Donald Trump’s whimsical decision to return the Department of Defense to a title it has not otherwise held in almost a century may well wind up costing the U.S. taxpayer up to $2 billion.

The MAGA administration’s move to swap the current name out for the far more menacing “Department of War,” as it was known from its founding in 1789 until 1949, would necessitate re-doing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of letterheads, badges, placards and signs at offices and on bases not only in the U.S. but around the world, NBC News reports.

Six people privy to ongoing conversations about the cost, among them two GOP and two Democratic Congressional staffers, told the outlet that letterheads and signage alone would quickly run the bill upward of $1 billion, with a full overhaul likely rising to double that amount.

President Donald Trump gives brief remarks to members of the press after exiting Air Force One on November 9, 2025 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. — Trump elected for the name change earlier this year for reasons best known to himself. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

One of the most expensive undertakings would apparently be radically overhauling the code behind each of the department’s various internal and public-facing websites, along with other software on both classified and unclassified systems.

“The Department of War is aggressively implementing the name change directed by President Trump, and is making the name permanent,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to NBC.

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30, 2025 in Quantico, Virginia. — Hegseth has since duly and enthusiastically taken to using his new moniker, ‘Secretary of War.’ Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“A final cost estimate has not been determined at this time due to the Democrat shutdown furloughing many of our critical civilians,” he added. “A nod to our proud heritage, this change is essential because it reflects the Department’s core mission: winning wars. This has always been our mission, and while we hope for peace, we will prepare for war.”

Trump ran on a campaign promise last year to slash what he framed as the rot of wasteful federal spending, appointing his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency drive earlier this year.

Musk and Trump staged a spectacularly messy public divorce earlier in July over Musk’s opposition to the president’s spending proposals, which the Tesla CEO described as a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled… disgusting abomination.”

The president’s spending measures, which included a $113.3 billion increase in Defense Department funding, nevertheless subsequently passed the Senate and the House.

Senate Democrats have since described the envisioned name change as “wasteful and hypocritical,” and something that “appears to prioritize political theater over responsible governance, while diverting resources from core national security functions.”

Though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have already proudly assumed use of his alternative title, Secretary of War, any actual, formal change remains subject to Congressional approval—something for which the Trump administration is not understood to have pushed for thus far.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon for comment on this story.

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Trump’s Insane Pentagon Name-Change Likely to Cost Taxpayers $2 Billion

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