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The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly hired 19-year-old Edward Coristine, who goes by the moniker "Big Balls" online, making him the organization's youngest employee.
DOGE's young staff, mostly aged between 19 and 24, recently made waves after their standoff with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), during which the latter organization refused to grant access to sensitive government data.
However, the situation was resolved after Musk directly ordered USAID to give his DOGE employees access. According to NBC News, President Donald Trump and Musk want to absorb USAID into DOGE, effectively shutting down the organization.
Edward Coristine was reportedly one of the DOGE employees involved in the standoff. CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront ran a segment about the teenager during their Thursday news featuring Katie Drummond, Wired's editorial director. She claimed that Coristine founded a company named Tesla.Sexy LLC in 2021.
"He [Coristine] is now working at Musk’s behest inside DOGE and we looked into his background, and so we found, you know, several notable things, Erin. One of which is that this individual has founded multiple companies, including one with another unfortunate name, uh, “Tesla Dot Sexy LLC,” which he established in 2021. He would have been around 16 years old," the reporter said.
Edward Coristine had previously worked at Elon Musk's Neuralink startup
Edward Coristine was reportedly an engineering student at Northeastern University; however, he allegedly dropped out after his freshman year. According to a report on Wired, the teenager founded at least five companies in over four years. As stated in his now-deleted LinkedIn profile, the companies were reportedly registered in Connecticut, Delaware, and the United Kingdom.
In 2021, Edward Coristine founded Tesla.Sexy LLC at the age of 16. The company controlled several web domains, including two Russian-registered domains. One of the domains ran an AI bot called "Helfie," designed to run Discord servers targeting the Russian market.
This raised security concerns among officials about how it would affect Coristine's security clearance review due to his company's alleged affiliations with Russia. During the interview with CNN, Wired's Katie Drummond said:
"This LLC controls dozens of web domains, a handful of which are registered to Russia. Now that in and of itself is not necessarily illegal, but every expert we’ve spoke to said that that is exactly the kind of thing, those kinds of foreign connections, that would raise red flags on a background check."
In 2022, Edward Coristine worked in a company called Path Network, primarily known for employing convicts and reformed hackers. In 2024, he was employed at Musk's Neuralink startup as an "expert" in the agency. A source told The Huntington News that Edward Coristine viewed Elon Musk as his idol, adding:
“He just thinks Elon [Musk] is a genius entrepreneur and admired his work and wanted to follow his tracks somewhat in the entrepreneurial space.”
According to Wired, Edward Coristine also participated in the calls where General Services Administration employees had to justify and review their written codes. After his standoff with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), most of Coristine's social media activity, under the handle "Big Balls," was scrubbed. His X profile was also changed to private after the incident.
Not much is known about Edward Coristine's personal life; however, his father is reportedly the CEO of LesserEvil, a health snack company.
For the uninitiated, USAID donates billions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas. Following DOGE employees' standoff with the organization, both Trump and Musk criticized USAID, with the Tesla owner calling it a “criminal organization” in an X post. According to the BBC, all USAID staff will reportedly be put on leave from February 7, and its overseas missions will be ordered to shut down.
