Former OpenAI exec Kevin Weil joins board at Stoke Space

Kevin Weil, a seasoned tech executive with experience at Twitter, Meta, Planet Labs, and OpenAI, has joined the board of Stoke Space, a well-funded Seattle startup developing reusable rockets to challenge SpaceX.

“It’s straightforward for me,” Stoke CEO Andy Lapsa told TechCrunch regarding his meeting with Weil when he co-founded Stoke in 2020 and subsequently joined Y Combinator’s winter batch. “I came from an engineering background, started a company, and had no idea how to fundraise or how Silicon Valley operated. I lacked a network. Kevin [an early investor alongside his wife Elizabeth through their fund Scribble Ventures] brought that expertise and helped me navigate fundraising and get the company off the ground.

The two continued their dialogue while Lapsa raised $1.34 billion — including a $510 million Series D funding round in 2025 — to build a rapidly reusable rocket scheduled for flight this year. Now, the timing appears right for Weil to join the board as a director to assist in scaling the company. Stoke declined to make Weil available for an interview, and he did not respond to TechCrunch’s outreach.

Weil’s previous work has centered on digital products and platforms, which do not obviously align with Stoke’s roadmap. He was most recently leading OpenAI’s efforts to accelerate scientific research, leaving the company after that program’s work was distributed more broadly across the frontier lab in April. He previously served as OpenAI’s chief product officer from June 2024 until October 2025.

Weil’s last role raises a clear question: OpenAI’s Sam Altman was reportedly evaluating Stoke last year, considering an investment in his own SpaceX competitor. Could Weil be the link 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, Nova, designed to be fully reusable and capable of multiple flights. No one has achieved this before, with SpaceX coming closest using its massive Starship rocket. The technological challenges of reusing a rocket—particularly its ability to withstand the extreme heat of reentering Earth’s atmosphere from space—deterred even space investors with the deepest pockets. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, where Lapsa previously worked, has explored this approach but has not prioritized it.

However, SpaceX’s blockbuster stock market debut—with much of its value resting on Elon Musk’s promises that Starship will conduct operational missions this year—has validated Lapsa’s foresight. Despite billions of dollars invested in new launch vehicles, there are not enough rockets available, and the next company to achieve regularly flying, reasonably priced rockets stands to make a fortune.

“The world is realizing that launch is still not solved,” Lapsa said. “The concept of full, rapid reuse was somewhat unconventional at that time…that is now rather normalized, and people see the inevitability now.”

Notably, the idea of building distributed data centers in space to leverage solar power and avoid Earth’s political restrictions has captured the imagination of some venture capitalists. The key obstacle there is the cost of launching all those computer chips into orbit. Space data centers “really only make sense with full rapid reuse,” Lapsa said, 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. And this isn’t his first time in the space business. Weil served as the president of Planet Labs, a satellite earth observation company, for three years as it went public in 2021.

Whatever Weil can contribute to the company’s strategy as it approaches delivering an operational launch vehicle, the company must still execute.

“We’ve got a good chunk of the risk behind us, but we have more to go,” Lapsa said. “We’ll work as hard as we can, and we’ll launch when it’s ready.”