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By Theo Burman
Live News Reporter
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A Department of Government Efficiency engineer nicknamed "Big Balls" has warned the federal government's computer payments system is "a huge vector for fraud, waste, and abuse."
"Big Balls," real name Edward Coristine, was among several DOGE members to talk to give their first news interview, speaking to Fox News' Jesse Watters on Wednesday evening.
Coristin said he was working to reform the payment system to better track where federal payments go. He rose to prominence in February as the youngest member of Elon Musk's DOGE agency at 19 years old,
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Why It Matters
Coristine's recruitment to Musk's team, which was commissioned by President Donald Trump to recommend ways to cut down on government spending, became a symbol of the administration's unconventional approach to federal reforms.
What To Know
Several members of DOGE, many of whom were young engineers hand-picked by Musk, sat down with Watters on Wednesday evening during the team's weekly 10 p.m. meeting.
"Right now, I'm working on some payment computer stuff," Coristine said, after being singled out by the Fox News' host. "One of our initiatives is to root out fraud and waste, and to do that, we started looking at the payment computers, and as mentioned earlier, there's no accounting of what payments actually go to in the payment computer."
"So you look at a specific line item, like $20 million, and you're like okay, what is this money actually going to? And for the majority of payment systems, we don't really know.
"It's a huge vector for fraud, waste, and abuse. There's no incentive to respect taxpayer money, if you work in the government," Coristine told Watters. "I think the incentives will always decide the outcomes."
Coristine said his "Big Balls" nickname came from an old LinkedIn account, telling Watters: "People on LinkedIn take themselves like super seriously and they're adverse to risk, and I was like, well, I want to be neither of those things, so I just said it, and honestly, I didn't even think anyone would notice."
Also in the interview, Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of Airbnb who joined DOGE in February, said that the agency had remade the government's retirement system with an entirely online version, after visiting a federal storage "cave" filled with retirement papers.
"Why are we still using paper in 2025?" Gebbia asked, bringing a retirement folder for one employee that was longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. "These are all compiled by hand and moved by cart through the mine, it takes months to do that. I would rather do my taxes in the dark than go through that."
Asked by Watters how technologically developed the federal government's processes were, Musk laughed and said: "It's Flintstones. It's very prehistoric. Like, dinosaurs would think this is kind of old. The only thing living was a sponge. That's how prehistoric it is."
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Another young engineer, Ethan Shaotran, said that working at DOGE had significantly damaged his social life, with colleagues at university breaking off friendships.
"I dropped out of Harvard and came here to serve my country, and it's been unfortunate to see lost friendships," he said. "Most of campus hates me now, but I hope fundamentally that people realize through conversations like this that reform is genuinely needed.
"There's one group of people who really have a shot at success, and it's the people here. They're up until 2 am, Monday to Sunday. DOGE does not recognize weekends."
Musk himself also said that there was a high risk of violence when working at DOGE, telling Watters: "I've been hanged in effigy many times, and there are people who have happily advocated at these violent protests for my death, and for the death of the people at DOGE."
Musk had previously said that Coristine had been "doxxed" online after his name, age, and history were discussed on social media in February.
What Happens Next
Musk is expected to step away from DOGE leadership in the coming months, as his time as a special government employee hits its limit. The White House has said that he will continue to be an ally and advisor to President Trump.
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