Edward Coristine, the 19yearold software engineer known online as “BigBalls,” has resigned from his position within Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, commonly referred to as “DOGE”, a spokesperson from the White House confirmed to American magazine WIRED.
His government email account was deactivated by Tuesday afternoon, and his name was removed from an internal contact list of DOGE employees at the White House. Coristine had only recently been formally appointed as a Senior Advisor at the GS-15 pay grade within the General Services Administration (GSA), starting on May 31, 2025.
During his brief time in government, Coristine attended several high-level meetings, including a May 5 session with the Commerce Department about Donald Trump’s “golden visa” program, and a May 22 Treasury meeting. His name still appeared in a June 10 GSA workforce report, but the swift removal of his access suggests a rapid and possibly unexpected exit.
WHO IS “BIG BALLS”?
Born in December 2005, Edward Coristine graduated from high school before entering the tech world. He previously held short stints at Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-interface company, and at LesserEvil, a snack business run by his father. At 16, he founded Tesla.Sexy LLC, a company managing web domains, including two registered in Russia.
His background has stirred controversy. According to CNN, he was dismissed from cybersecurity firm Path Network in 2022 for allegedly leaking proprietary information. Compounding concern, his maternal grandfather, Valery Martynov, was reportedly a former KGB officer who was executed by the Soviet Union for working as a double agent, a fact that drew scrutiny given Coristine’s access to secure government systems.
His nickname, “Big Balls,” began as a joke, a note from a high school friend, and eventually became his online alias. Coristine embraced the name fully, even using it on LinkedIn, which he claims caught Elon Musk’s attention and led to his DOGE appointment.
The nickname gained widespread national attention during a Fox News segment when host Jesse Watters asked a room of DOGE employees, “Who is Big Balls?” Coristine stood up and responded, “I am,” prompting laughter and a quip from Musk: “That should be obvious.”
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