Redwood Materials Names Deepak Ahuja, Ex-Tesla CFO, as New Chief Financial Officer

Redwood Materials hired Deepak Ahuja as its chief financial officer, the company announced on Monday. Ahuja most recently served as chief financial and business officer at Zipline for about three years after joining the drone delivery company in 2022. He returns to work with JB Straubel, who founded Redwood Materials in 2017 while concurrently serving as Tesla CTO until July 2019.

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

After leaving Tesla again in 2019, he served as CFO of Verily Life Sciences. 3 billion in venture funding and secured a $2 billion loan commitment from the Department of Energy. Redwood Materials has a valuation of over $6 billion.

It closed a $425 million Series E funding round in January that brought its total capital raised to more than $2 billion and added Google and Nvidia’s venture arm to its cap table. Ahuja is a small investor in Redwood Materials. He told TechCrunch it is too early to talk about an IPO for the company.

"Naturally, an IPO is a potential outcome for any private company, and we’ll talk about it when the time is right," Ahuja said. Redwood Materials had been without a CFO for more than a year after Jason Thompson left in December 2024. Thompson joined The Nuclear Company in Reno after departing.

Ahuja arrives less than a month after the company implemented a restructuring in which it cut about 10% of headcount, or 135 people, partly to refocus resources on its energy division. "Redwood today is the strongest it's ever been," JB Straubel wrote in an email on April 15 informing employees of the cuts.

Ahuja told TechCrunch he is excited by innovative technology solutions that impact climate and address energy needs.

He has stayed close with Straubel since both left Tesla in 2019. 3 million commercial deliveries via drone to-date. 8 billion and is ranked at #46 in the 2025 CNBC Disruptor list.

A Zipline spokesperson told CNBC that Ahuja remains a close advisor to the company. Redwood Materials produces critical minerals from recycled batteries and builds battery energy storage systems used at data centers, factories, defense operations and to stabilize the grid. Ahuja said the work ensures minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel stay within the country.

He cited the scale of growth and critical need for such systems as motivating factors in his decision to join.