Claim:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak prints his own $2 bills and uses them as legal tender.
Rating:
What’s True
Wozniak legally purchases uncut sheets of genuine $2 bills from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing and has a print shop bind and perforate them into tear-off pads, which he uses to prank friends, interviewers and the public.
What’s False
However, he does not print U.S. currency himself. Producing fake U.S. notes is counterfeiting and a federal crime.
For years, social media users have repeated a claim that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak “prints” his own $2 bills and spends them “100% legally.” The rumor is often paired with an interview clip in which Wozniak describes using a printer and says that the ink is “still wet.”
One Threads post (archived), featuring a video in which Wozniak describes using $2 bills from perforated pads, read, “Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak prints his own $2 bills, 100% legal.”
Versions of the claim have also circulated across social media platforms, including X, Reddit, Pinterest and YouTube.
The claim is a mixture of true and false information. It’s true that Wozniak has told some version of this story for years and often leans into it in interviews — sometimes trolling audiences with humorous lines about “suspicious” serial numbers or the ink still being wet. But it’s false that he prints his own $2 bills.
What he has actually described doing is legally buying uncut sheets of genuine $2 notes from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, then having a print shop bind and perforate them into tear-off pads. Counterfeiting U.S. money is a serious federal crime, but buying real currency sheets and turning them into novelty pads is not.
Wozniak has recounted the $2-bill story for years, and the clip circulating in December 2025 traces to a segment of “The Engadget Show,” titled, “Woz’s $2 bill sheets.”
In the interview, Wozniak says:
Yeah, basically I got a printer in my hometown of Los Gatos, California, to make these pads for me. I got them the supplies from a higher-quality printer, and they’re perforated so you can tear them off like Green Stamps. I don’t know if it’s the right president. The serial numbers are very suspicious, but you can still smell the ink. So don’t touch it because it’s a little wet.
He added: “They meet the specs of the U.S. government, so by law, these are legal tender. I have been spending them. You can get arrested for them, you cannot get convicted because you’re in the right.”
In an archived post on Wozniak’s official website, he shared the truth behind the story in response to an email inquiry. The email read: “Reading through the letters section, I saw a reference to a Secret Service interrogation, but nowhere else on your site could I find a description of the incident. Would you mind relating it again (or giving me a pointer to where the story resides)?”
“I have tons of $2 bill stories that will make a whole chapter in my book someday. My $2 bills are real and legit but unusual,” Wozniak wrote, explaining:
You can purchase $1, $2, and now $5 bills from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving on sheets. The sheets come in sizes of 4, 16, and 32 bills each. I buy such sheets of $2 bills. I carry large sheets, folded in my pocket, and sometimes pull out scissors and cut a few off to pay for something in a store. It’s just for comedy, as the $2 bills cost nearly $3 each when purchased on sheets. They cost even more at coin stores.
“I take the sheets of 4 bills and have a printer, located through friends, gum them into pads, like stationery pads. The printer then perforates them between the bills, so that I can tear a bill or two away,” he added, admitting that the bills are not self-produced but are legitimate currency purchased from the U.S. government.
For those interested, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing offers uncut currency sheets for purchase on its official website:
(www.usmint.gov)
We have previously investigated other claims involving dollar bills. For instance, in 2022 we fact-checked a rumor that picking up folded dollar bills from the ground could be life-threatening because of the presence of powder inside containing fentanyl and methamphetamine.
