A teenage tech operative once dubbed a rising star in Elon Musk’s controversial federal overhaul effort has abruptly resigned – just weeks after his infamous boss’s own exit.

Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old former Neuralink employee who styled himself online as ‘Big Balls,’ is no longer working for the US government, the White House confirmed on Tuesday. 

His name vanished from internal contact lists, and his government email account was deactivated, signaling the end of one of the most bizarre and incendiary appointments in recent federal history.

Coristine’s resignation comes just weeks after the departure of Elon Musk and his top lieutenant Steve Davis from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Musk-led initiative launched by Donald Trump earlier this year to radically streamline, digitize, and disrupt the federal bureaucracy. 

Coristine was one of the first hires and quickly became a symbol of DOGE’s tech-bro bravado and brazen disregard for Washington norms.

Coristine, a high school graduate with a resume that includes Neuralink and a short stint at a hacker-linked company, was given remarkable access across government. 

According to Wired, he bounced between agencies including the GSA, Department of Education, USAID, Small Business Administration, and even Office of Personnel Management, helping implement Musk’s sweeping vision to centralize data and digitize operations – sometimes through back channels and with little oversight.

He also attended high-level meetings at the Commerce, Treasury, and Defense Departments, records show, discussing DOGE integration and controversial programs such as Trump’s ‘golden visa’ plan.

Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine, a 19-year-old tech operative once dubbed a rising star in Elon Musk ‘s controversial federal overhaul effort has abruptly resigned

Coristine’s departure comes just weeks after his infamous boss’s own exit

But Coristine’s tenure was riddled with controversy. 

He allegedly appeared in hacker chatrooms, was once fired over a suspected data leak, and according to Reuters, was tied to a cybercrime group that trafficked stolen data and bragged about harassing an FBI agent. 

In March, he was reportedly offering tech support to a cybercrime gang that had bragged about trafficking in stolen data and harassing an FBI agent.

His online persona, ‘Big Balls,’ became a meme within both tech and political circles – a crude moniker that came to represent DOGE’s irreverent, combative style. 

Despite that, Coristine maintained full-time federal status as recently as late May, and was reportedly granted multiple government-issued laptops, according to former DOGE operative Sahil Lavingia.

Coristine’s exit follows a wave of resignations that began with Musk’s own departure from DOGE in April. 

His abrupt retreat from the federal stage threw the department into disarray and triggered a domino effect, as key loyalists were either pushed out or walked away. 

Steve Davis, president of The Boring Company, left shortly after Musk.

Coristine was one of the first hires and quickly became a symbol of DOGE’s tech-bro bravado and brazen disregard for Washington norms

Coristine was fired from cybersecurity firm Path Networks for leaking secrets to competitors

Although the White House insists DOGE will continue, the once high-flying program now appears rudderless. 

Insiders say the vacuum left by Musk and Davis has led to internal paralysis, with once-dominant DOGE operatives quietly reassigned or purged from federal systems.

Coristine’s past has long shadowed his federal tenure. In addition to his Neuralink stint, he once founded a company called Tesla.Sexy LLC, which registered Russian-based domains and developed an AI Discord bot. 

According to Wired, he briefly worked for a company founded by reformed blackhat hackers, and his Telegram handle was reportedly involved in questionable online solicitations.

Coristine, who was raised in a wealthy town in Westchester County outside New York City as the son of a popcorn baron, also spoke about how he got his X-rated nickname.

He was a junior at a $50,000-per-year Rye Country Day School, where his bored math classmates were passing a note around.

When it got to him, Coristine ‘drew a phallic object and wrote BIG BALLS on it,’ a current student who heard the story told New York Magazine.

Coristine’s resignation comes just weeks after the departure of Elon Musk and his top lieutenant Steve Davis, president of The Boring Company

Coristine attended high-level meetings at the Commerce, Treasury, and Defense Departments, discussing DOGE integration and controversial programs such as Trump’s ‘golden visa’ plan

‘Then a math teacher took it out of his hands and read it out loud to the class. Then I guess he embraced it because he changed his LinkedIn name to that.’

Coristine said he ‘just set it as my LinkedIn username.

‘People on LinkedIn take themselves like super seriously and are pretty averse to risk, and I was like “I want to be neither of those things.”‘

‘Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would know,’ he said. 

Despite the baggage, he was trusted with sensitive digital infrastructure and participated in federal meetings involving payment systems and surveillance integration – raising serious questions about DOGE’s vetting standards and the oversight of its hires.

Federal agencies have remained tight-lipped on what exactly led to his exit.