Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, one of the first young technologists brought on to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has returned to government shortly after resigning.
“Edward Coristine joined the Social Security Administration this week as a special government employee,” Stephen McGraw, an SSA spokesperson, tells WIRED. “His work will be focused on improving the functionality of the Social Security website and advancing our mission of delivering more efficient service to the American people.”
Multiple sources at the SSA tell WIRED that Coristine has appeared in person to work onsite at the agency’s Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters. One SSA employee says they saw Coristine with DOGE engineer Aram Moghaddassi, a current X and former Neuralink employee deployed at the agency. The pair was spotted at the SSA cafeteria as recently as Monday, although it’s unclear what day this week Coristine’s employment officially began. “Coristine looked nervous, almost embarrassed,” the SSA source says. “Aram was on the phone with someone … then said, ‘Yes, I’m with him right now,’ gesturing to Big Balls.”
Coristine and Moghaddassi did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Coristine’s rehiring comes after a White House official told WIRED on Tuesday that the 19-year-old had resigned from his position in government. A Trump administration official confirms to WIRED that Coristine did indeed resign on Monday, and then was brought back by the SSA later in the week.
Coristine became a full-time government employee at the General Services Administration (GSA) on May 30, WIRED reported earlier this month, converting from the restricted special government employee classification, which has a time limit of 130 days. As of Tuesday afternoon, Coristine’s Google Workspace account with the GSA had been disabled and his name did not appear on a list of DOGE employees on the federal payroll maintained by a senior administration official. The GSA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Coristine was one of a handful of DOGE engineers who worked across many government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Health and Human Services, the US Agency for International Development, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, among others. Coristine isn’t known to have previously worked at the SSA.
A 19-year-old high school graduate who worked at Musk’s Neuralink for several months, Coristine has gone by the handle “Big Balls” online and joined the government with no prior experience. He has also founded a company called Tesla.Sexy LLC in 2021 and worked for a startup known for hiring blackhat hackers; he was reportedly fired after being suspected of leaking internal information.
Sahil Lavingia, a former DOGE member who WIRED first identified at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, told WIRED that “it felt like there was no real connection besides Elon being in the White House.” Speaking about an all-DOGE meeting with Musk held in March, Lavingia says, “the only person from the White House was Katie Miller.” Miller left the White House with Musk and now works for the centibillionaire.
Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University, tells WIRED that the White House not knowing that a recently departed employee had been rehired was “abnormal, but it seems to be normal for this administration.”