A teenage member of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team was fired after being accused of leaking proprietary data while working for a cybersecurity firm.
The revelation adds to mounting concerns over Musk's hand-picked DOGE team and raises further questions about their access to sensitive government data amid a flurry of lawsuits.
Edward Coristine, 19, was fired from Path Network back in June 2022 after executives accused him of sharing company secrets.
"Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors," read a message from a Path Network executive, according to Bloomberg News. "This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this."
"I can confirm that Edward Coristine's brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure," a spokesperson for the Arizona-based firm confirmed Thursday.
Despite being canned, Coristine boasted about having continued access to the company's systems.
"I had access to every single machine," he wrote on Discord weeks after his dismissal. Using the alias "Rivage," Coristine allegedly claimed he could have deleted critical servers but refrained: "I never exploited it because it's just not me."
Path Network executives found his comments in a Discord group related to a competitor, which raised serious security concerns, as no former employee should have access to company systems.
Coristine's role within DOGE reportedly involves gathering datasets on government personnel, contracts and programs.
"Giving Elon Musk's goon squad access to systems that control payments to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other key federal programs is a national security nightmare," Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee told Bloomberg.
Coristine and colleagues allegedly explored using data to replace government workers with AI and automate tasks. Meanwhile, a recently filed lawsuit against the Department of Education alleges DOGE fed students' information to AI.
According to an executive order, DOGE staffers have access to agency records, systems and unclassified data.
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