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Who is ‘Big Balls’? Edward Coristine, key figure in Musk’s DOGE, resigns from federal government post
Edward Coristine, known online as ‘Big Balls’, was a teen member of Musk' DOGE staff. He received full-time employment status at GSA last month.
Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old engineer known online as “Big Balls,” has stepped down from his role in the federal government. Coristine was among the first technologists recruited for Elon Musk’s ambitious Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Just last month, on May 31, 2025, he was appointed as a Senior Advisor at the GS-15 pay grade within the General Services Administration (GSA).
"Edward Coristine resigned yesterday,” a White House official tells WIRED.
In his short tenure, Coristine attended several high-level meetings that included a May 5 discussion with the Commerce Department about President Donald Trump's “golden visa” program and a May 22 meeting with the Treasury Department.
According to WIRED, his name appeared in a June 10 GSA workforce report, a monthly document tracking agency staff. However, by Tuesday afternoon, his GSA Google Workspace account was deactivated, and his name was removed from a White House contact list of current DOGE employees.
Who is Edward “Big Balls” Coristine?
Born in December 2005, Edward Coristine is a high school graduate. Before joining DOGE, he briefly worked at Neuralink, one of Musk’s companies focused on brain-computer interfaces, and at LesserEvil, a snack company run by his father.
At just 16, he founded Tesla.Sexy LLC, a company that manages a range of web domains, including two registered in Russia. According to a CNN report, he was dismissed from Path Network, a cybersecurity firm founded by reformed hackers, in 2022 for allegedly leaking proprietary information. His maternal grandfather, Valery Martynov, was reportedly a KGB officer executed by the Soviet Union for acting as a double agent. These elements of his background sparked criticism over his appointment to sensitive government positions, particularly those granting access to secure systems.
Coristine got the nickname “Big Balls” from a funny note a friend gave him in high school. He later used it as his online name.
