Age 19-year-old technologist Edward Coristine, who was formerly known online as “Big Balls,” has become a key player in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
Security experts have expressed doubts over whether the work and internet history of Edward Coristine would satisfy the strict standards normally required to receive security clearances in the US government.
A group of Elon Musk’s assistants, referred to as the “DOGE kids,” showed up at the almost deserted USAID headquarters in Washington, DC, on Saturday and demanded access to the organization’s offices, including a secure room (SCIF) designated for sensitive and confidential materials. Edward Coristine was a member of this group.
Who is DOGE employee Edward Coristine aka Big Balls, bio, age, family, parents, father, college, education and career
🚨🚨BREAKING: Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old member of Elon Musk’s DOGE who gained access to the highly sensitive federal payment system, was fired from an internship for allegedly leaking information to a competitor, Bloomberg reports
“Edward has been terminated for leaking… pic.twitter.com/AV0jHpUEur
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 7, 2025
Top-level security clearance is required to enter the secure room of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is used for evaluating sensitive and secret material.
When a security guard denied the DOGE children’s request to access the SCIF after they had been putting pressure on USAID officials for several days, they went from office to office and searched desks.
Musk threatened to enlist the US Marshals Service if his team wasn’t granted access to sensitive material after one of them called him. It’s unclear if they possessed the required security clearances, but eventually they were able to access at least some of what they were pursuing.
Significant criticism and resentment against DOGE and its young employees, notably Coristine, were generated by the events of Saturday.
The youngest of DOGE staff member is 19-year-old Edward Coristine, heir to a popcorn fortune whose online name is ‘Big Balls’. Coristine briefly worked in 2022 at Path Network, which is known for hiring convicted and reformed hackers and one of the companies Coristine founded in 2021, when he should have been 16 years old, is named Tesla.Sexy LLC.
Coristine also worked at Neuralink, another Musk-run enterprise, before joining DOGE, where he has participated in meetings reviewing government personnel and code.
His father, Charles Coristine, is the CEO of LesserEvil Snacks, a fast-growing organic snack brand in Danbury with the company now expanding into a massive new facility.
According to reports, age 19 Edward Coristine attended Northeastern University to study engineering but left after his first year. The high school graduate was enrolled as a mechanical engineering and physics major.
In more than four years, the adolescent started at least five businesses, according to a Wired investigation. According to his since-deleted LinkedIn profile, the businesses were allegedly registered in the UK, Delaware, and Connecticut.
Three of the men reshaping the government with DOGE:
Gavin Kliger, 25: reposted Nick Fuentes and other white supremacists
Marko Elez, 25: says he was “racist before it was cool”
Edward Coristine, 19: fired from past job for sharing internal information with a competitor pic.twitter.com/7D3IFUzEQ3
— Gabe Fleisher (@WakeUp2Politics) February 7, 2025
At the age of sixteen, Edward Coristine established Tesla.Sexy LLC in 2021. Two Russian-registered domains were among the several web domains under the company’s control. “Helfie,” an AI bot created to operate Discord servers aimed at the Russian market, was running on one of the domains.
Because of his company’s purported ties to Russia, officials were concerned about how this might impact Coristine’s security clearance evaluation.
19 yo uber wealthy Edward Coristine, son of Charles (owner of snack brand ‘Lesser Evil’) also goes by the name of “Big Balls”.
Musky has tasked “Big Balls” and his teen pals with examining YOUR SS payments.
At least I now know not to purchase any snacks from Lesser Evil. pic.twitter.com/1IAkIYltDw
— LK (@nylgk2) February 5, 2025