A friend of Edward Coristine, a first-year student at Northeastern, said tech billionaire Elon Musk is an “idol” to Coristine.
“Through high school, his goal was never really to go to college,” the friend said. “He really just wanted to build his own thing, like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.”
Now, Coristine, a Class of 2028 mechanical engineering and physics combined major, is one of a handful of young men employed by Musk at the new Department of Government Efficiency who has been given extraordinary access to sensitive government data as part of his designation as an “expert” within the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management, WIRED Magazine reported Feb. 2.
The WIRED article identified a group of young engineers — all 19 to 24 years old — who appeared on calls with government employees and asked them to review code they had written and “justify their jobs.” All the young engineers are believed to have connections to Elon Musk, who currently spearheads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. According to WIRED, Coristine spent three months last summer before starting at Northeastern working at Neuralink, a company founded by Musk that develops brain implants.
The Trump administration established DOGE with a Jan. 20 executive order, aiming to “modern[ize] Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Since its inception, DOGE has been granted increasingly confidential access to sensitive government databases and the Treasury Department’s payment systems. Anonymous sources at the Technology Transformation Services — housed within the U.S. General Services Administration — told WIRED that employees were being summoned for one-on-one meetings with management and were surprised when they were met on the calls by college-aged engineers connected to DOGE. WIRED reported that the engineers lacked official government IDs and email addresses and were reluctant to identify themselves on the calls with career government employees.
Coristine is listed as an “expert” by internal records from the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, according to WIRED. He allegedly reports to Amanda Scales, the new OPM chief of staff, who was previously employed by Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.
Coristine did not respond to requests for comment from The Huntington News requesting comment. Three sources close to Coristine told The News in interviews that they were unaware of any involvement he allegedly has at DOGE before WIRED’s Feb. 2 article.
One person connected to Coristine, who spoke to The News on the condition of anonymity, befriended him in 2021. They said Coristine completed the fall 2024 semester at Northeastern but did not return for the spring 2025 semester. The source said they have “no clue” where Coristine is now and have not seen him for weeks.
The person described an interaction between themself and Coristine days before the spring 2025 semester began in January.
“It was like an on-the-whim decision,” the person said of Coristine not returning for the spring semester. “I saw him here at Northeastern as I was moving in. He was telling me he was moving out and just didn’t elaborate.” They added that Coristine said he planned to work for his dad, and “do his own thing.”
Charles Coristine, Edward Coristine’s father, is the president and CEO of LesserEvil Snacks — a company that manufactures organic snacks. Charles Coristine began as CEO of LesserEvil in 2012, which raked in over $100 million in gross sales in 2024, according to a September 2024 CNBC article.
Charles Coristine was last active on his Facebook account in 2021. Among his reposts are articles urging readers to go vegan, critiques of Trump’s border policy from 2015 and an article about the United States’ plastic waste problem.
Edward Coristine’s friend described him as being politically “independent,” saying that he doesn’t discuss politics. The source said Coristine has demonstrated interest in computer science and entrepreneurship since high school but did not see a compelling reason to attend college.
The source said they believe Coristine “didn’t think that he’d ever be able to learn any computer science from university because he’s already learned so much.”
They added that Musk is an “idol” to Coristine.
“He just thinks Elon [Musk] is a genius entrepreneur and admired his work and wanted to follow his tracks somewhat in the entrepreneurial space,” the source said.
The source added that Coristine’s skills and experience set him apart from his peers and that working for Musk will allow him to build on them.
“He’s very passionate about what he does,” the source said. “Obviously, he’s super passionate about computer science, and he’s trying to chase that passion. He’s very skillful at it because he’s obviously very accomplished for someone his age, just a freshman in college. He’s already done so much.”
There has been substantial criticism of Musk’s access and influence on the federal government. After reading WIRED’s report, Jordan, a 2018 Northeastern alum, submitted a complaint to Northeastern’s Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, claiming that, as a student, Coristine violated Northeastern’s Code of Student Conduct.
“Mr. Coristine was among the unauthorized individuals who infiltrated the USAID offices and seized classified information in violation of federal law,” the complaint, which was shared with The News, reads. “According to media reports, Mr. Coristine is an incoming Northeastern University student and is reported to have engaged in unprofessional conduct.”
In the complaint, Jordan wrote that they suspected Edward Coristine to be in violation of several policies, including “Forgery (misuse of documents or records),” “Misuse of Electronic Resources” and “Theft (unauthorized use of computer systems).”
A profile hyperlinked in DiamondCDN’s page with the name “Edward C.” on GitHub — a platform that allows developers to store, manage and share code — refers to him as a “technologist.”
“It’s cheesy, but I’m passionate about improving humanity!” the profile’s biography reads.
“He’s a super nice guy. He’s a super humble guy,” said another source close to Edward Coristine, who spoke to The News on the condition of anonymity. “And he’s a really hard-working guy who just loves to accomplish great things. … That’s just who he is.”
News staff Paloma Welch contributed reporting.
