The youngest leader of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is arguably becoming the most feared by members of the federal workforce.
The 19-year-old Edward Coristine is one of the agency’s six leaders, whose identities became public last week. A 2024 graduate of New York’s Rye Country Day School, he went by the name of “Big Balls” on LinkedIn, according to a profile that has since been deleted. Coristine began attending Northeastern University in Boston in the fall and, according to his X profile, worked as an intern for Neuralink, one of Musk’s companies, before joining DOGE.
Outside of working for Musk, Coristine listed himself as the CEO of DiamondCDN, a bot “that handles tickets and other simple fun operations,” and as a warehouse worker for LesserEvil Healthy Brands, a snack company led by his father, Charles Coristine. CNBC profiled the elder Coristine in September, noting that he worked for Morgan Stanley before purchasing LesserEvil for $350,000 in 2011, a move that he described as “impulsive and ill-researched.”
Nonetheless, according to CNBC, the company’s gross sales hit $103 million in 2023.
The younger Coristine has been one of the six DOGE leaders Musk appointed to clean up the federal government. His name is also the one that has been most frequently cited by disgruntled federal employees speaking anonymously since it first arose in a Jan. 30 report published by Wired, when an employee complained “that they were brought into a review with Edward Coristine, a recent high school graduate.”
Reports in subsequent days have cited more unsettled federal workers complaining about Coristine, including several from the General Services Administration. Staffers at that agency complained on Feb. 1 that Coristine and another DOGE staffer — Ethan Shaotran — requested “access to a variety of GSA records, including nearly 10 years of accounting data, as well as detailed records on vendor payments, purchase orders, and revenue.” They also said that Coristine specifically “appeared on calls where workers were made to go over code they had written and justify their jobs.”
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Employees at the United States Agency for International Aid and Development (USAID) expressed alarm the same day when Coristine made an in-person appearance at that agency with several of his colleagues — Luke Farritor, Jeremy Lewin and Gavin Kliger. When USAID employees refused to let the group enter to review documents related to personnel and payments, the DOGE officials threatened to call the U.S. Marshals for support. They ultimately did one better by passing word back to Musk — as well as President Donald Trump, who relieved the department’s top two security officials and temporarily shuttered the agency.
Among members of that group, Coristine was the only who showed up wielding an additional title — outside of DOGE — as an “expert” at the Office of Personnel Management, where he reports directly to OPM Chief of Staff Amanda Scales. One DOGE official who was not present for the USAID encounter — Akash Bobba — holds the same title.
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Two days after the USAID incident, Coristine’s name came up again on in connection with another federal agency, the Small Business Administration, when a staffer shared an agency-wide email from Coristine with PBS. In it, Coristine once again asked employees to provide “access to all SBA systems,” including those for managing human resources along with systems related to contracts and payments.
The latest missive prompted a complaint from Democrats on the House Committee on Small Business, who responded to the news from their official account on X, writing, “Elon Musk is now aiming his crosshairs at American entrepreneurs. … Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and these programs must be protected.”
Interim District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Ed Martin posted a letter on X early Monday indicating that the outsized attention for Coristine and his colleagues could be creating unforeseen complications for the work being conducted at DOGE. “I recognize that some of the staff at DOGE has been targeted publicly,” Martin wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Musk. “At this time, I ask that you utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the DOGE work and the DOGE workers. Any threats, confrontations, or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws.”
“Let me assure you of this: we will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people,” he added.
“Thank you, receipt via X acknowledged,” Musk replied.