Recording reveals new details on controversial DOGE employee

CNN —
Less than three years before Elon Musk tapped him to take part in a sweeping overhaul of the US government, Edward Coristine, then 17, was the subject of a heated dispute between two executives at the Arizona-based cybersecurity firm where he was an intern.
At issue was whether to allow Coristine to keep his job even though he was suspected of leaking proprietary information to a competitor.
“You’re willing to risk our entire network to a 17-year-old?” one frustrated executive asked the company’s CEO in 2022. “Are you for real right now?”
In a recording of the call, reviewed by CNN, Marshal Webb, the CEO of Path Network, a company that offers services to protect businesses from cyberattacks, defended his decision.
He said he wanted to allow Coristine to continue with his internship, in part, because he didn’t want to make him “an enemy” or have him “running amok” with information he was suspected of taking. Webb allowed him to stay with the proviso that the young employee “not be exposed to anything that’s really sensitive.”
That was then.
Today, the 19-year-old, once known by the online moniker “Big Balls,” is part of Musk’s controversial effort to remake the federal government. He is a “senior advisor” with access to various departments, including Homeland Security, FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The details of Coristine’s role with the government are not clear. But his young age and relative lack of experience have raised concerns about his overall suitability for such potentially sensitive work.
Some government experts have questioned whether Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency – under which Coristine works – has appropriately followed all rules meant to protect US government data.
“The federal government has more data on American citizens than almost any other institution and so if we’re going to just remove the guardrails that protect that data, there’s no saying which actors may gain access to that,” said Nick Bednar, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who specializes in the executive branch. “That data is very valuable to know where people have invested their money, to know their social security numbers, their bank account information.”
DHS and CISA referred CNN’s request for comment to DOGE, which did not respond.
Coristine did not respond to CNN’s request for comment but posted on Discord at the time of his termination that he had done “nothing contractually wrong” while working at the cybersecurity company, according to Bloomberg.
Path Network, which previously confirmed Coristine had been terminated from his internship for leaking company information, declined comment on Friday.
Kyan Gomes, Director of Operations at a Path Network subsidiary, said he was initially opposed to keeping Coristine on after discovering he allegedly leaked information, but later agreed with the company’s decision.
@cnn Two years before Elon Musk tapped him as part of DOGE, Edward Coristine, then 17, was the subject of a heated dispute between executives at the Arizona-based cybersecurity firm where he was an intern. Coristine, who referred to himself as