Kevin Weil, a seasoned technology leader with past roles at Twitter, Meta, Planet Labs, and OpenAI, has been appointed to the board of Stoke Space. This well-funded Seattle startup is developing reusable rockets to challenge SpaceX. “I came from an engineering background, started a company, and had no clue how to raise funds. I didn’t understand how Silicon Valley operated, and I had no connections. Kevin [an early investor in the company alongside his wife Elizabeth through their fund Scribble Ventures] brought all that expertise and helped me think through fundraising and getting the business off the ground.” The two continued their discussions as Stoke’s CEO, Andy Lapsa, raised $1.34 billion—including a $510 million Series D round in 2025—to build a rapidly reusable rocket that could take flight this year. Now, the timing seems right for Weil to join as a board director to help scale the company further.

Weil’s background has centered on digital products and platforms, which aren’t immediately linked to Stoke’s roadmap. Most recently, he led OpenAI’s efforts to accelerate scientific research, leaving the company in April after that program’s work was distributed more broadly across the frontier lab. He had previously served as OpenAI’s chief product officer from June 2024 to October 2025. His last role raises an obvious question: OpenAI’s Sam Altman was reportedly exploring Stoke last year, considering an investment in his own SpaceX competitor. Could Weil be the connection between the frontier AI lab and a potential partner in space? Lapsa declined to comment on “gossip and rumors” about OpenAI, stating that Weil’s role is to focus on Stoke itself.

Stoke is developing a rocket called Nova, designed to be fully reusable and capable of flying repeatedly. No one has achieved this before, with SpaceX coming closest through its massive Starship rocket. The technical hurdles of reusing a rocket—especially surviving the extreme heat of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere from space—have deterred even the most well-funded space investors. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, where Lapsa once worked, has explored the approach but hasn’t made it a priority. However, SpaceX’s blockbuster stock market debut—with much of its value tied to Elon Musk’s promises that Starship will fly operational missions this year—has validated Lapsa’s vision. Despite billions of dollars poured into new launch vehicles, there aren’t enough rockets to meet demand, and the next company to regularly fly a reasonably-priced rocket stands to make a fortune. “The world is realizing that launch is still not solved,” Lapsa said. “The idea of full, rapid reuse was a bit out there at the time… that’s now become normalized, and people see the inevitable now.”

Notably, the concept of building distributed data centers in space to harness solar power and bypass political restrictions on Earth has captured the imagination of some venture capitalists. The main obstacle is the cost of transporting all those computer chips into orbit. Space data centers “really only make sense with full rapid reuse,” Lapsa noted, which could be a key differentiator for Stoke as its rocket begins flying. Military contracts will also be crucial to the company’s success, and Weil has experience bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and the Department of Defense; he was one of four tech leaders who joined the US Army Reserve to improve recruitment and cooperation between the Army and industry. This isn’t his first foray into space either. Weil served as president of Planet Labs, a satellite earth observation company, for three years as it went public in 2021. Whatever strategic insights Weil can bring as the company nears delivering an operational launch vehicle, execution remains paramount. “We’ve got a good chunk of the risk behind us, we’ve got more to go,” Lapsa said. “We’ll work as hard as we can, and we’ll go when it’s ready.”