People online are calling for a boycott of Lesser Evil, a healthy snack brand based in Connecticut, over its ties to the 19-year-old member of Elon Musk's DOGE team who went by the online handle “BigBalls."
Across sites like Reddit and TikTok, posters are flagging that Lesser Evil CEO Charles Coristine is the father of Edward Coristine, the youngest staffer on the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency initiative.
“Right now the most powerful tool of resistance to these people is your spending power. Do not buy any LesserEvil product,” a viral post under the subreddit r/fednews read.
“People like Edward don’t become this way overnight and generally are enabled by their parents. Until he shows otherwise, Charles and LesserEvil have essentially given their stamp of approval for this,” it added, somewhat speculatively.
Musk’s DOGE team is facing harsh public scrutiny and pushback over what many consider to be a private and illegal takeover of the government.
Coristine is one of at least six staffers named by WIRED working with DOGE, all of whom have no experience in government, but were suddenly auditing federal workers and spending.
In the wake of the names being revealed, online researchers looked for any information about the young engineers, leading to the revelation that Coristine’s dad owned the health food brand.
Lesser Evil sells a wide array of alternatives to junk food, like cheese puffs and Funyuns. It is best known for its popcorn, with flavors like chocolate candy cane and Himalayan pink salt, made with "organically grown ingredients," according to its website.
Charles Coristine, a former Wall Street executive, bought Lesser Evil in 2011, a “failing snack company” that now brings over $100 million a year
But the swift backlash this week against Lesser Evil has gotten so bad that the father deleted his LinkedIn account, which once had more than 4,000 followers.
“I think it’s time that we show Charles Coristine what the cost is when you have a son who is a traitor to this country working for Elon Musk trying to illegally overthrow the United States government,” one user on TikTok said.
It remains to be seen if the boycott will make a dent in the company’s finances, which recently expanded to a new distribution site, according to Daily Voice.
But some online are saying the quality of the snacks, and not Edward's DOGE work, is reason enough for a boycott.
The company was sued in California for claiming its snacks were healthier alternatives when they allegedly were not, according to a Bloomberg report about the lawsuit.
“Don’t have to boycott that, that popcorn is shit. All I can taste is stupid coconut flavor,” one Reddit user summed up.
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