Musk's Teen DOGE Lieutenant Has Some Iffy Security Issues

Wired has previously reported on the small army of young engineers helping Elon Musk in his mission to slash federal spending. The outlet continues the theme with a new story focusing on a 19-year-old member of Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, Edward Coristine. The piece notes that Coristine is privy to sensitive government data in his DOGE role, but it questions whether he would pass a standard security clearance. Some details:

• Coristine founded the company Tesla.Sexy LLC in 2021, and it controls at least two Russian-registered domains. "Foreign connections, whether it's foreign contacts with friends or domain names registered in foreign countries, would be flagged by any agency during the security investigation process," says former US Army intelligence officer Joseph Shelzi.

• Coristine also controls the domain faster.pw, which is inactive, "but an archived version from October 25, 2022 shows content in Chinese that stated the service helped provide 'multiple encrypted cross-border networks.'"
• He worked for the startup Path Network, which has hired convicted hackers, including Cosmo the God of the group UGNazis.
• "If I was doing the background investigation on him, I would probably have recommended against hiring him for the work he's doing," says former FBI agent EJ Hilbert. "I'm not opposed to the idea of cleaning up the government. But I am questioning the people that are doing it."
• Blogger davidck also profiles Coristine at the Daily Kos, writing that the teen's main qualification for his current DOGE work seems to be that he worked three months at Musk's brain-interface company Neuralink. The piece also notes that the teen has gone by the name "Big Balls" online.

(More DOGE stories.)