Former Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja joins EV battery recycler Redwood Materials

Redwood Materials, the Nevada-based electric vehicle battery recycling company founded by Tesla board member JB Straubel, has hired Deepak Ahuja as its new CFO. Ahuja previously served as Tesla’s finance chief from March 2017 to March 2019 and played a key role in the company’s IPO in 2010. His decision to join was influenced by his long-standing relationship with Straubel, whom he has known for 18 years. The company, valued at over $6 billion, has raised over $2.3 billion in venture funding from investors including Google, Nvidia’s Nventures, Microsoft, OMERS, and Eclipse, along with a $2 billion loan commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy. Redwood Materials focuses on extracting critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel from spent EV batteries, ensuring domestic supply for consumer electronics, vehicles, and energy products. Ahuja highlighted the company’s mission to keep critical minerals within the U.S., calling it ‘super motivating’ given the growing demand for battery materials. Beyond recycling, Redwood Materials now builds battery energy storage systems using repurposed EV batteries to store renewable energy like solar and wind power. Before joining Redwood Materials, Ahuja served as CFO of Verily Life Sciences and later as chief business and financial officer at Zipline, the world’s largest drone delivery company. His expertise in scaling high-growth companies aligns with Redwood Materials’ ambitions to expand its recycling and energy storage operations nationwide.