Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old technologist known by the online moniker "Big Balls," resigned from his role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, marking the latest high-profile departure following Elon Musk's exit from the agency last month. A White House official confirmed the resignation to multiple news outlets, including WIRED and Reuters, noting that Coristine's Google Workspace account with the General Services Administration (GSA) was deactivated as of that day, and his name was removed from the White House contact list of current DOGE employees.
Coristine’s resignation comes amid a string of exits from DOGE, raising questions about the future of the controversial agency established by President Donald Trump earlier this year. DOGE was tasked with slashing $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget through aggressive cuts to spending, programs, and workforce reductions. While the department's efforts have reportedly saved approximately $180 billion, translating to about $1,118 in savings per taxpayer, the agency has faced intense scrutiny due to the youth and perceived inexperience of some of its staff, including Coristine.
Known widely by his nickname, which originated from his LinkedIn username and was embraced by Elon Musk and supporters, Coristine became a symbol of DOGE’s brash and unconventional approach. In a May 2025 interview on Fox News with Jesse Watters, Coristine explained, "I use it as my LinkedIn username. People on LinkedIn take themselves super seriously and are pretty averse to risk, and I was like, 'Well, I want to be neither of those things.'" The moniker even earned a mention on "Saturday Night Live," underscoring his unusual prominence for a government aide.
Despite his youth—he graduated high school in Rye, New York, in 2024 and was briefly enrolled as an engineering student at Northeastern University—Coristine was rapidly deployed across multiple federal agencies. His roles included work within the GSA, the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and most recently, the Social Security Administration. He was involved in high-level meetings, such as a May 5 discussion with the Commerce Department about the "golden visa" program championed by President Trump, a May 15 meeting about implementing DOGE's agenda within the military, and a May 22 meeting with the Treasury Department.
Coristine’s tenure at DOGE was marked by his access to sensitive government systems, including federal payment networks. During his Fox News interview, he revealed that many Treasury Department payment systems lacked transparency, stating, "There’s no accounting of what payments actually go to in the payment computer. You look at a specific line item — $20 million. You’re like, ‘OK, what is this money going to?’ And for the majority of payment systems, it’s like, ‘Well, we don’t really know.’" He described the taxpayer money distribution system as having "no checks and no accountability," calling it a "huge vector for fraud, waste, and abuse." This insight reflected DOGE’s broader mission to root out inefficiencies and fraud within federal spending.
However, Coristine’s background and conduct have sparked controversy and criticism, particularly from Democrats and liberal media commentators. Reports surfaced that before his federal government role, Coristine was fired from an internship at Path Network, a cybersecurity firm founded by reformed hackers, for allegedly leaking sensitive information. Reuters reported that in 2025, he had provided network infrastructure and tech support to a cybercriminal gang that boasted about trafficking stolen data and harassing an FBI agent. His activity in hacker chat rooms and alleged solicitation of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks via Telegram further fueled calls from lawmakers for a full investigation into DOGE’s staffing practices.
Coristine also founded Tesla.Sexy LLC in 2021 at the age of 16, a company managing various web domains, including two registered in Russia, one of which is an AI Discord bot. Prior to joining DOGE, he briefly worked at Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, and at LesserEvil, a snack company run by his father. His maternal grandfather, Valery Martynov, was reportedly a KGB officer executed for being a double agent, adding another layer of intrigue to his background.
Inside DOGE, Coristine was part of a small, highly trusted cadre of technologists who juggled multiple federal laptops and were deployed across agencies to implement the agency’s aggressive agenda. Sahil Lavingia, a former DOGE member, remarked on the culture, saying, "The core group of pre-inauguration engineers joked about how many laptops they had. It was almost like a competition to have seven, eight different laptops that they would run around with." During his tenure, DOGE sought to dismantle significant portions of the federal bureaucracy, with cuts targeting tens of thousands of government workers and efforts to consolidate systems to enable increased surveillance.
Coristine's departure follows that of Elon Musk, who led DOGE since President Trump took office in January 2025, as well as Musk’s deputy Steve Davis and investor Brad Smith, both of whom left the agency in recent weeks. Despite these high-profile exits, many DOGE staffers remain embedded in federal agencies, continuing to execute the department’s mission. Russell Vought, a senior White House budget official and key figure in the Project 2025 policy manifesto, has reportedly taken on an enhanced role in advancing DOGE’s agenda since Musk’s departure.
The White House has maintained that DOGE’s mission will continue despite the turnover, but the agency’s future remains uncertain amid growing scrutiny and internal upheaval. Coristine’s resignation epitomizes the challenges DOGE faces: balancing the promise of innovative government efficiency with questions about the qualifications and backgrounds of its young, unconventional staff. As the agency moves forward without Musk and several of its original team members, the nation watches closely to see if the bold experiment in federal downsizing and reform will endure or unravel.
