Redwood Materials Appoints Deepak Ahuja, Ex-Tesla and Zipline CFO, as New Chief Financial Officer

Redwood Materials announced Monday that Deepak Ahuja has joined the company as chief financial officer. Ahuja most recently served as chief financial and business officer at Zipline for about three years after joining the world's largest drone delivery company in 2022. 8 billion.

Ahuja served as CFO at Tesla from March 2017 to March 2019. He first joined Tesla in 2008, navigated the company through its IPO in 2010, briefly resigned in 2015 and was recruited back two years later.

JB Straubel started Redwood Materials in 2017 while serving as Tesla CTO until July 2019. 3 billion in venture funding, received a $2 billion loan commitment from the Department of Energy and has a valuation of over $6 billion. com reported that Redwood Materials views the batteries from EVs and other devices as some of the most valuable energy assets in the country because they retain capacity for second-life use and contain critical minerals that can be extracted.

Ahuja told CNBC that his long relationship with Straubel primarily influenced his decision to join. "Knowing JB for the last 18 years, I have huge respect for him as a leader, an engineer and as a thinker. And knowing so many of the leadership team who are from Tesla makes it easier for me to step in with a sense of credibility and build the business," he said.

"There are different business models, different areas of growth and capital allocation, that it's still going to be a learning experience for me," Ahuja added. " Ahuja arrives less than a month after Redwood Materials cut about 10% of headcount, or 135 people. JB Straubel wrote in an email on April 15 that "Redwood today is the strongest it's ever been.

In its energy storage business, Redwood Materials has built a 12 megawatt and 63 megawatt-hour capacity microgrid in Abilene, Texas, for the AI infrastructure company Crusoe. " Redwood Materials has been striking deals with partners like Ford and Rivian for battery energy storage systems that repurpose spent EV batteries to store renewable power for data centers, factories, defense operations and grid stabilization.

Ahuja told CNBC that without battery systems the grid falls behind and off-grid solutions cannot meet large industrial or commercial needs.

U.S. despite some recent ups and downs. Zipline's delivery drones are fully electric, aligning with the broader shift Redwood Materials supports through battery recycling and second-life deployments.