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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 online alias "Big Balls",[1] is an American college student and programmer formerly appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE),[2][3][4][5] and made a permanent federal employee with the title Senior Advisor at the highest pay grade (GS-15) in the General Services Administration at the end of May 2025.[6] Coristine resigned weeks later in June before taking a job at the Social Security Administration.[7]
 | This article has an unclear citation style. The reason given is: Most references lack dates. (July 2025) |
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Early life and education
Coristine was born in December 2005.[8][9] His father is Charles Coristine, the CEO of LesserEvil.[10] His maternal grandfather, Valery Martynov, was a KGB Lieutenant Colonel executed by the Soviet Union as a double agent. After his execution his widow moved with her children, including Coristine's mother, to the United States.[11]
According to his LinkedIn résumé, Coristine graduated from Rye Country Day School in 2024, and attends Northeastern University.[12][13][14] He enrolled at Northeastern University in 2024 as a mechanical engineering and physics major.[15] His expected year of graduation is 2028.[8] School friends describe him as intelligent and driven, with Elon Musk being his hero.[16][17]
Coristine is a registered Republican.[8]
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Career
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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.[18] Coristine has a limited liability company named TESLA.SEXY.[19][20]
He briefly worked for cybersecurity firm Path Network.[21] Bloomberg News reported that Coristine had been fired from his internship at cybersecurity firm 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.[22] Coristine wrote that he had retained access to Path Network's servers, but claimed he did not exploit it.[23] Path Network confirmed that Coristine had been fired following a security incident.[24][25]
He briefly worked for LesserEvil, a snack company owned by his father Charles Coristine.[12] LesserEvil distanced itself from Edward following his involvement in DOGE.[26]
Coristine worked briefly at Neuralink before moving to the Department of Government Efficiency.[18] Coristine was among a group of 19- to 24-year-olds without prior experience in government appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency.[27][28] Coristine was the youngest member of the group.[29] He worked within the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), reporting directly to Amanda Scales, a former xAI employee appointed as OPM chief of staff.[30] OPM records listed his role as an "expert". According to Wired, Coristine sat in on calls using a non-government email address where workers were made to "go over code they had written and justify their jobs".[3][12]
In 2025, Coristine held a call with federal Small Business Administration staff detailing the level of access wanted by DOGE, including human resources, contract, and payment systems.[31] He reportedly signed into the call from a non-government email address.[28][32] Brian Krebs reported that Coristine had previously been active in online communities known as "The Com", a network of Discord and Telegram channels associated with cybercrime activities.[22]
The Washington Post reported Coristine became a senior advisor in the Bureau of Diplomatic Technology of the United States Department of State. The Post also reported that Coristine is a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and had a position in the United States Agency for International Development.[33][34][35] In 2025, Coristine was a staff member at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.[36][37]
Reuters published a story alleging that Coristine's online content delivery network DiamondCDN had facilitated the work of the cybercriminal group EGodly.[38][39][40][41] In 2023 Egodly thanked Coristine, 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.[42][43]
On June 4, Wired reported that Coristine had become a full-time General Services Administration employee at a General Schedule grade of 15, the top grade.[6] Later that month, Coristine resigned from the General Services Administration.[44][45] He was then hired by the Social Security Administration.[7][46]
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See also
References
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