Big Balls’ DOGE Guy, 19, Is Now a ‘Senior Adviser’ in State Department
It’s the same Elon Musk minion who was fired from an internship for allegedly leaking sensitive information to a competitor.
Elon Musk’s teenage acolyte known online as “Big Balls” has taken on a significant role in the U.S. State Department that has some officials on edge, a report claims.
Edward Coristine, 19, now works as a “senior adviser” in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, The Washington Post reported. That bureau is a data hub that serves as the IT department for Washington’s diplomatic apparatus.
The role comes in addition to Coristine’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency, where reports identified him as one of Musk minions who have forced federal workers to justify why they should keep their jobs in one-on-one meetings.
Musk and others in MAGA have defended the youth of the DOGE team,
claiming the whiz kids’ ages should not disqualify them from doing good
work.
There are concerns with Coristine that go beyond his youth, however. A Bloomberg report revealed Friday the teen was once fired from an internship at Path Network after an internal probe found he leaked sensitive information to a competitor.
An anonymous official who spoke to the Post said the 2022 leak, which Coristine has denied doing, is proof his proximity to sensitive material is “dangerous.”
Others who spoke to the Post said they fear Coristine’s position could “give him a foothold for obtaining unauthorized access to classified material” and perhaps “obtain compromising information on other countries and foreign activities.”
Landing a senior role in the State Department is quite the career leap
for Coristine, who only recently dropped out of Northeastern
University—where he was a freshman engineering major—to join Musk’s team
of young and controversial programmers.
He is the son of Charles Coristine, a businessman who purchased the once-failing snack company LesserEvil in 2011 and has since turned it around to reportedly rake in over $100 million a year.
It appears the younger Coristine has his sights on more than running a popcorn company like his father, however. WIRED reported he “has appeared on calls where workers were made to go over code they had written and justify their jobs.” He holds an official position in DOGE and in the Office of Personnel Management.
Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old DOGE engineer, is also listed in the State Department’s directory as working at the Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, the Post reported. He is the son of a longtime engineering professor at the University of Nebraska. He studied there himself before dropping out to take gigs in Silicon Valley—a decision that followed him famously deciphering a portion of the Vesuvius Scrolls.