GoKawiilRedwood Materials, the electric vehicle battery recycling business started by Tesla board member and former CTO JB Straubel, is bringing on another former Tesla executive, Deepak Ahuja, as CFO, the company announced Monday.
Ahuja served as finance chief at Tesla from March 2017 to March 2019, his second term at Elon Musk's EV and clean energy company. He first joined Tesla in 2008, navigated it through an IPO in 2010, briefly resigned in 2015 and was recruited back two years later.
Ahuja told CNBC that his relationship with Straubel primarily influenced his decision to join the recycling startup.
"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."
Straubel had originally started Redwood Materials in 2017, running it while concurrently serving as Tesla CTO until July 2019.
The Carson City, Nevada-based startup has raised over $2.3 billion in venture funding from an array of venture firms and strategic backers, including Google , Nvidia 's Nventures, Microsoft , OMERS and Eclipse, among them, also securing a $2 billion loan commitment from the Department of Energy.
Redwood Materials now boasts a valuation of over $6 billion.
The incoming CFO also lauded Redwood Materials for work that ensures critical minerals, like lithium, cobalt, nickel and others, "stay within the country." Such minerals are crucial for the production of consumer electronics, vehicles, defense and energy products.
"That's super motivating for me — the scale of how much this is going to grow, and the critical need for it in the country," he said.