Stake
19.9% of the class on the latest 13G/A — a stake no board can route around
35/35
Founder
Founder — on the cap table from day one
15/15
Tenure
In the chair since Oct 2008 — 17 years
10/10
Track record
3 companies sold or taken public before this chair
15/15
Direction
Net buyer — 2.6M shares bought on the open market, no sales — but an award of 423.7M shares came free
10/15
Discipline
2 late Form 4s in 173 filings
7/10
Track record · other companies
- 1995–99Zip2 · co-foundersold to Compaq · $307M
- 1999–02X.com / PayPal · co-founder, CEOsold to eBay · $1.5B
- 2002–SpaceX · founder, CEOlisted 2026
- 2016–Neuralink · The Boring Company · founderprivate
- 2023–xAI · foundermerged into SpaceX
Score = stake band (35) + founder (15) + tenure (10) + track record (15) + 12-month direction (−10…15) + filing discipline (10). Every input links to a filing or to the career file; the bands are ours.