Latest news with #BigBalls
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
The Tyranny of ‘Big Balls' Has Come to an End
Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old given unprecedented access to some of the most private information on Americans, has reportedly quit his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency according to Wired. If you don't remember the name Coristine, you probably remember his nickname, the thing he reportedly told people to call him while he plundered the nation's data. He went by Big Balls. Coristine had been working as a so-called Special Government Employee, which allows workers to skip the more strict financial disclosures required for government employees but prohibits work to just 130 days in a year. That changed last month, according to Wired. Coristine had been hired in May as a full-time employee at the General Services Administration, right around the same time that Musk formally exited DOGE, more or less accusing President Donald Trump of being a pedophile in the process. Officially, Coristine was an employee of GSA but was working across multiple government agencies, according to Wired. Big Balls was reportedly rooting around in government systems for USAID, the Department of Education, and the Small Business Administration, among others. It's not clear how much data to which Coristine ultimately got access. Nor do we know what he, or anyone else affiliated with DOGE, has done with it. Coristine made an infamous appearance on Fox News where he tried to strengthen Musk's case that the federal government was riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse. But he wound up accidentally revealing that he simply had no idea how anything works. Coristine and Musk seemed to believe that because they didn't know how various things in the government worked, some kind of nefarious activity had been exposed. But it did nothing of the sort. 'So you look at a specific line item, like $20 million. You're like, OK, well, what is this money going to? And for the majority of payment systems, it's like, well, we don't really know,' Coristine said during his Fox News appearance in early May. Coristine had no work experience in forensic accounting and the DOGE dipshits were largely feeding massive quantities of data to AI systems in an effort to understand what they were looking at, according to multiple reports. But these guys seemed to truly believe that if they didn't understand something, it must be evidence of wrongdoing. Coristine had previously been fired from a cybersecurity company for allegedly leaking company secrets and went to work for Musk's company Neuralink before joining the DOGE team. Coristine's father, Charles Coristine, is the CEO of the snack food company LesserEvil, which was sued in 2023 for representing its snacks as 'healthier' than other junk food. The brand tried to distance itself from Big Balls back in February, writing, the company 'is in no way affiliated with any political figures, political policies or political groups.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
DOGE's ‘Big Balls' no longer works for the government: report
A young star of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency – nicknamed 'Big Balls' – has reportedly resigned from the agency. Edward Coristine was just 19 when he was first selected to work for the Tesla boss as a technologist, and received full-time staff status at the General Services Administration last month. 'Edward Coristine resigned yesterday,' a White House official told WIRED, who noted via a source that his Google Suite account with the GSA is no longer active. According to the same anonymous official, Coristine also no longer appears on a White House contact list of current DOGE employees on the federal payroll. The Independent has contacted the White House for comment on whether the youngster is still employed by the government. Coristine became well known online and among Musk's immense fanbase publicly after he was paraded on Fox News alongside his boss. 'Who is Big Balls?' host Jesse Watters asked on his program, surrounded by DOGE members and supporters at a huge oval conference table. 'I am,' piped up 19-year-old DOGE staff member Edward Coristine. 'That should be obvious,' Musk quipped to laughter. Coristine claimed to have caught the eye of the world's richest man after simply changing his name on LinkedIn to 'Big Balls.' In addition to his brief stint as a government employee, the teenage high school graduate worked at Neuralink for several months and founded a company called LLC in 2021, according to WIRED. Speaking to Fox News, Coristine stated that while working in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, he used 'computer stuff' as he claimed to ferret out 'fraud and waste,' the old mantra of his former boss. Per WIRED, in May, Coristine appeared to be attending regular meetings with important departments and working on major projects including President Donald Trump's Golden Visa with Commerce Department officials. The same month he also reportedly attended meetings to discuss implementing the DOGE agenda in the armed forces and also with the Treasury Department. On June 10, per WIRED, he was listed in a monthly GSA workforce report.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Democrat asks who will get ‘Big Balls' in Musk, Trump ‘divorce'
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) sarcastically highlighted President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's apparent rift over the 'big, beautiful' spending bill during a hearing Wednesday by posing the question: What will happen to the teen tech wunderkind infamously known as 'Big Balls'? 'Now that the national divorce is happening … who's gonna get 'Big Balls'?' Moskowitz asked during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. 'I'm worried about him. The children always get caught in the middle.' 'If he's out there, I just want him to know we are rooting for him,' the Florida Democrat added, referring to himself as 'also a child of divorce.' Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old known online as 'Big Balls,' was brought onto the White House's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with his mentor Musk earlier this year near the start of Trump's second presidency. He quickly drew attention for his age, the scope of his role in handling government information and his online moniker. Coristine's account on the social platform X is now set to private. The White House and federal Office of Personnel Management didn't immediately respond to The Hill's queries about the status of his employment with the federal government. Several DOGE employees departed the Trump administration along with Musk last week, including adviser Steve Davis, spokesperson Katie Miller and lawyer James Burnham. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO expressed gratitude to Trump at the end of his special government employee role but has since emerged as a voracious critic of the Trump-backed GOP megabill the House passed last month. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,' Musk posted Tuesday on the social platform X, another business he owns. The billionaire continued to blast the bill, urging his X followers Wednesday to 'Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.' The sprawling 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' is now up for consideration in the Senate, where lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have spoken out against it. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Democrat asks who will get ‘Big Balls' in Musk, Trump ‘divorce'
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) sarcastically highlighted President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's apparent rift over the 'big, beautiful' spending bill during a hearing Wednesday by posing the question: What will happen to the teen tech wunderkind infamously known as 'Big Balls'? 'Now that the national divorce is happening … Who's gonna get 'Big Balls'?' Moskowitz said during a House Oversight panel hearing. 'I'm worried about him. The children always get caught in the middle.' 'If he's out there, I just want him to know we are rooting for him,' the Florida Democrat added, referring to himself as 'also a child of divorce.' Edward Cortisone, the 19-year-old known online as 'Big Balls,' was brought onto the White House's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with his mentor Musk earlier this year near the start of Trump's second presidency. He quickly drew attention over his age, the scope of his role in handling government information and his unconventional online moniker. Cortisone's account on social platform X is now set to private. The White House and federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) didn't immediately respond to The Hill's queries about the status of his employment with the federal government. Several DOGE employees departed the Trump administration along with Musk last week, including adviser Steve Davis, spokesperson Katie Miller and lawyer James Burnham. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO expressed gratitude to Trump at the end of his special government employee role but has since emerged as a voracious critic of the Trump-backed GOP megabill that passed the House last month. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,' Musk posted Tuesday on X, which he also owns. The billionaire continued to blast the bill urging online followers on Wednesday to 'Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.' The sprawling 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' is now up for consideration in the Senate, where lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have spoken out against it.
Forbes
09-05-2025
- Forbes
New $1 Trillion DOGE-Trolling Ransomware Attacks Confirmed
New DOGE Big Balls ransomware attacks spotted. Just as you were hoping the ransomware threat might have started to ebb, the bad news keeps flowing in. From government warnings as hackers target passwords and 2FA codes to use in their extortion attacks, one ransomware campaign dropping zero-days, and researchers indicating a 5,365 ransomware attack rampage. There has been some good news, such as the notorious LockBit group being hacked and details of their crypto wallets being leaked. But the good news is in the minority, as this latest report has confirmed: the DOGE Big Balls ransomware attackers are back with a new payload alongside that by now infamous Elon Musk-trolling $1 trillion ransom demand. In case you missed it the first time around, the strange tale of the DOGE Big Balls ransomware attack is quite the oddball, even for the world of cybersecurity, where threats often border on the bizarre. It all started on April 15 when I reported how a ransomware group was weaving political conspiracy theory into malware code in an apparent attempt to throw cyber-defenders and law enforcement off the scent. That ransomware was given the name of DOGE Big Balls because it referenced software engineer and DOGE worker, who has an online nickname of Big Balls, and even included his home address and telephone number in the ransomware note. Fast forward to April 23, and things started getting even more outlandish as the ransomware attackers upped the ante by including a $1 trillion demand in the ransomware note. This appeared, once again, to be a direct DOGE-trolling exercise, aimed at Elon Musk as much as anyone. 'Give me five bullet points on what you accomplished for work last week, or you owe me a TRILLION dollars,' the note demanded. It would be too easy to suggest you can't take this bunch of cybercriminals seriously, but that would be a mistake, as threat intelligence has just landed regarding another twist and turn in the DOGE ransomware campaign, including dangerous new payloads and tools being used in ongoing attacks. The Netskope report describes new scripts and binaries, as well as custom and open-source tools, and new ransomware payloads. 'During our investigation,' Fróes said, 'we noticed that both the payloads and the URLs used to download the payloads were updated quite often.' That there was a large number of payloads, and these were updated at an alarming frequency, Fróes said, it only goes to reinforce how 'complex and dangerous attacks involving this ransomware can be, using many different tools to cover phases like lateral movement, privilege escalation, credential dumping, and more.' So, regardless of the DOGE-trolling and the frankly ridiculous $1 trillion demand, take note when Fróes concluded the report by stressing the 'significant negative impact' that a successful DOGE Big Balls ransomware attack can have on a business. At the end of the day, no matter the bizarreness of the attacker, ransomware is no joke.
