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Edward Coristine
American software engineer (born 2005) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Edward Coristine (born December 2005), also known by the nickname Big Balls, is an American programmer and former engineering student who was appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) during the second term of U.S. President Donald Trump. Coristine was later made a permanent federal employee in the General Services Administration before resigning in June 2025 and taking a job at the Social Security Administration. Coristine is known for his association with Elon Musk and DOGE, his youth and inexperience relative to his responsibilities with DOGE, and his vulgar nickname.[1]
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Early life and education
Coristine was born in December 2005.[2][3] His father is Charles Coristine, the CEO of LesserEvil.[4] His maternal grandfather, Valery Martynov, was a KGB lieutenant colonel executed in 1987 by the Soviet Union as a double agent. After Martynov's execution, his widow moved with her children – including Coristine's mother Anna – to the United States.[5]
Coristine graduated from Rye Country Day School in 2024.[6] He acquired the nickname "Big Balls" during a math class in his junior year of high school[7][1][8] and added it to his LinkedIn profile.[9] He enrolled at Northeastern University in 2024 as a mechanical engineering and physics major.[10] School friends describe him as intelligent and driven, with Elon Musk being his hero.[11][12] Coristine is a registered Republican.[2]
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Career
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A computer programmer and former engineering student,[13][14] Coristine has founded a number of startups with companies registered in Connecticut, Delaware, and the United Kingdom. One of the startups offers an artificial intelligence Discord bot for the Russian market.[15] Coristine has a limited liability company named TESLA.SEXY.[16][17]
Coristine briefly worked for cybersecurity firm Path Network.[18] Bloomberg News reported that Coristine was fired from his internship at Path Network in 2022 for allegedly leaking internal company information to a competitor. Following his dismissal, a large collection of internal Path documents and conversations was leaked online.[19] Coristine wrote that he had retained access to Path Network's servers, but claimed he did not exploit it.[20] Path Network confirmed that Coristine had been fired following a security incident.[21][22]
Coristine's online content delivery network, DiamondCDN, has reportedly facilitated the work of the cybercriminal group EGodly.[23][24][25][26] In 2023, Egodly thanked DiamondCDN, saying, "We extend our gratitude to our valued partners DiamondCDN for generously providing us with their amazing DDoS protection and caching systems, which allow us to securely host and safeguard our website." Egodly has claimed involvement in a number of crimes including email hacking, theft of cryptocurrency, and the harassment of a former FBI agent.[27][28]
According to investigative journalist Brian Krebs, Coristine has been active in online communities known as "The Com", a network of Discord and Telegram channels associated with cybercrime activities.[19]
Coristine worked briefly at Neuralink, an Elon Musk-run enterprise, before being appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).[15][29][30] He was among a group of 19- to 25-year-olds without prior experience in government appointed to DOGE;[31] Coristine was the youngest member of the group.[32] He worked within the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), reporting directly to Amanda Scales, a former xAI employee appointed as OPM chief of staff. OPM records listed his role as "expert". According to Wired, Coristine sat in on calls using a non-government email address where workers were directed to "go over code they had written and justify their jobs".[29][33] On one call with federal Small Business Administration staff, Coristine asserted that DOGE wanted access to human resources, contract, and payment systems at the agency.[34]
Also in 2025, Coristine served as a senior advisor at the Bureau of Diplomatic Technology of the United States Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In addition, he held positions at the United States Agency for International Development[35][8][36] and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.[37][38]
On May 31, 2025, Coristine became a full-time General Services Administration employee at a General Schedule grade of 15 (the top civil service grade in the federal government).[39] In June 2025, Coristine resigned from the General Services Administration.[40][14] He was then hired by the Social Security Administration.[41][42]
A whistleblower disclosure by Social Security Administration chief data officer Charles Borges, released on August 26, 2025, alleged that Coristine had uploaded the Social Security numbers and other personal information of 300 million Americans to a "vulnerable" cloud server. Borges said this created a risk of widespread identity theft in the event of a leak or hack, and stated that Coristine's actions "potentially violated multiple federal statutes" regarding the protection of government data.[43][44]
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Personal life
On August 3, 2025, Coristine was assaulted in an attempted carjacking in Washington, D.C. between 3:01 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. according to the police report.[1][13] Trump cited the incident in a criticism of crime rates in the city, which he used as a rationale to federalize the city's police force and deploy the National Guard.[45][46]
See also
- Marko Elez – Software engineer
- Luke Farritor – American software engineer
References
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