About

Edward Coristine, also known as Big Balls or bigballs, is a 19-year-old staffer hired by Elon Musk to work in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in early 2025. In early February 2025, the teen went viral on social media over his past nickname used on LinkedIn, "bigballs," which inspired memes and became a subject of news reports and discourse online.

History

On February 1st, 2025, investigative journalist Jacqueline Sweet made a Bluesky post about one of the recent hires at the Department of Government Efficiency, a budget-streamlining government department established by President Donald Trump and headed by Elon Musk. The post^[1] revealed that 19-year-old Edward Coristine, one of the group of young Gen Z men hired by the department, had formerly used the nickname "bigballs" as his LinkedIn handle, with the post gaining over 1,500 reposts and 3,700 likes in one week (screenshot of the deleted profile shown below).

Further investigations into Coristine's part revealed that he founded multiple companies, including one named "Tesla.Sexy LLC," and that he worked at a startup that hired convicted hackers.^[2] On February 2nd, 2025, Jacqueline Sweet shared a photograph^[7] of Coristine on Bluesky.

Online Reactions

Edward Coristine's nickname, assisted by his choice of a meme-popular Zoomer Perm as his haircut, became a prevalent subject of jokes and memes in early February 2025 alongside memes about other young members of the DOGE team.

On February 2nd, 2025, an unknown 4chan^[3] user made a post about Coristine and his nickname on the /pol/ board of the site, where it received over 340 replies.

On February 6th, 2025, tweleb^[4] and X user @ALX tweeted an AI-generated image of a protesting woman holding a paper with the words "No one elected Big Balls" on it. The post received over 920 reposts and 7,100 likes in one day.

Later on February 6th, Elon Musk quoted^[5] the post, writing, "Personally, I voted for Big Balls." The reply (shown below) received over 16,000 reposts and 188,000 likes in one day.

Also on February 6th, 2025, Coristine and his nickname were both mentioned on CNN (clip shown below),^[6] with more memes about the teen's nickname appearing on X and Bluesky in the following days.

CNN is seething about a DOGE staffer named “Big Balls” who founded a company called Tesla․Sexy LLC 🤣 pic.twitter.com/AB1UEHkpLY

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 7, 2025

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References