By Steve Neavling
A top member of Elon Musk’s government tech team once provided services to a cybercrime ring that claimed responsibility for stalking an FBI agent and trafficking in stolen data, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.
Edward Coristine, 19, is a senior adviser to agencies including the State Department and CISA through Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” a private effort aimed at overhauling federal bureaucracy. He previously ran DiamondCDN, a network services company that, according to online records, supported a group called “EGodly” beginning in 2022.
EGodly publicly thanked DiamondCDN in a Telegram post for providing DDoS protection and web hosting. Digital traces show Coristine’s company was linked to the group’s website for several months in 2022 and 2023.
The group had claimed responsibility for doxxing a federal agent and posting a drive-by video of someone shouting threats outside his Wilmington, Delaware home. Though Reuters could not verify all of EGodly’s hacking claims, it authenticated the video and confirmed the identity of the now-retired agent, who declined to comment in detail but called EGodly “not a pleasant group.”
Neither Coristine nor Musk’s team responded to requests for comment. A former top official at CISA said the links between Coristine and EGodly, even if brief, raise serious concerns.
“This wasn’t in the distant past,” said Nitin Natarajan, former deputy director of CISA. “The recency of the activity and the groups he was associated with would definitely be concerning.”
