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By Jordan King
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One of Elon Musk's engineers at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Edward "Big Balls" Coristine, is reportedly the great-grandson of a former KGB agent.
This is according to journalist Jacob Silverman, who has written several books on technology, cryptocurrency and politics and is currently working on a book about Musk.
Newsweek has contacted X, formerly Twitter, via email for comment on Musk's behalf.
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Why It Matters
Coristine's great-grandfather would have worked for the KGB during the Cold War, when the U.S. and Russia were enemies.
It is unclear whether this would have come up in any background checks for a DOGE employee—The New York Times previously reported that DOGE staff who were handling sensitive information had received equivalent training and security clearance as federal employees. Newsweek has contacted DOGE via direct message on X for comment on this.
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What To Know
Silverman reported that Coristine's great-grandfather is Valery Fedorovich Martynov, who was sent to the U.S. to serve as an undercover KGB agent at the Soviet Embassy in Washington as part of a technical espionage division.
In 1982, Martynov was reportedly recruited by the FBI to feed it Soviet secrets, but he was eventually discovered by KGB counterintelligence officer Victor Cherkashin and executed as a traitor.
Coristine, a high school graduate with a history of launching startups, has founded at least five companies across multiple jurisdictions, including Connecticut, Delaware and the United Kingdom.
One of his ventures, Tesla.Sexy LLC, registered when he was just 16, manages dozens of web domains, including Russian-registered sites, one of which, Helfie—an AI bot for Discord servers targeting the Russian market—is still operational, according to Wired.
Coristine made headlines last month after it came out that he was fired from the cyber security company Path Networks in 2022 for leaking internal information, according to a statement from the firm seen by Bloomberg.
What People Are Saying
Elon Musk said on social media in response to Coristine being identified: "Can't believe they doxxed another DOGE team member ..."
Former FBI agent EJ Hilbert previously told Wired: "If I was doing the background investigation on him, I would probably have recommended against hiring him for the work he's doing. I'm not opposed to the idea of cleaning up the government. But I am questioning the people that are doing it."
Journalist and author Jacob Silverman wrote that there is a: "19-year-old young man named Edward Coristine, who currently wields an unknown amount of power and authority over the inner workings of our federal government."
What Happens Next
DOGE continues to make sweeping changes in the federal government.
Correction 3/2/24, 9:17 a.m. ET: This article was updated to clarify that Coristine was fired from Path Networks in 2022 and did not resign from DOGE in February after a racism controversy. That was Marko Elez, another DOGE employee.
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