Technologies

Former Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja joins EV battery recycler Redwood Materials

Before joining Redwood Materials, Ahuja served as chief financial and business officer at the drone delivery startup Zipline for about three years.

Redwood 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.
After he resigned from Tesla in 2019, Ahuja served as CFO of Verily Life Sciences, then in 2022 joined Zipline, the drone delivery company, where he worked as chief business and financial officer.
Zipline, ranked at #46 in the 2025 CNBC Disruptor list, is the world’s largest drone delivery company, and has logged more than 2.3 million commercial deliveries via drone to-date. The company recently closed an $800 million round of funding with a valuation of $7.8 billion. Zipline’s delivery drones are fully electric.
A Zipline spokesperson told CNBC that Ahuja remains a close advisor to the company.
Redwood Materials views the batteries from EVs, and other machines and devices, as some of the most valuable energy assets in the country. That’s because the batteries still have capacity to store energy when they reach the end of their useful life in vehicles and other devices, and in general, spent batteries contain critical minerals that can be extracted, and used in new products.
In its early years, Redwood Materials focused on “closed loop” recycling, taking end-of-life electric vehicle batteries and scrap from car factories, and turning those into raw materials and components to make new battery cells.
Today, the company also builds and deploys battery energy storage systems, which can store power derived from intermittent, renewable energy sources — like solar, wind and water — to use at a later time. The systems made by Redwood Materials include repurposed, or “second-life” EV batteries.
The data center boom in the U.S. is driving significant demand for the systems, which are also used at factories, in defense operations and to stabilize grid operations.
“If we don’t have battery systems, our grid is just falling behind, and we can’t have off-grid solutions for even large, industrial or commercial needs that we may have,” Ahuja told CNBC.
Ahuja arrives at Redwood Materials 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, TechCrunch first reported.
The company had been without a CFO for more than a year after its prior finance leader, Jason Thompson, left Redwood Materials and joined The Nuclear Company in Reno in December 2024.
“Redwood today is the strongest it’s ever been,” Straubel wrote in a widely distributed email informing employees of the cuts on April 15. “The materials business is well on its way to profitability and has an exciting road map ahead and we’re seeing great momentum in Redwood Energy.”
Ahuja told CNBC that he sees demand for fully electric vehicles growing in the U.S. despite some recent ups and downs.
In its energy storage business, Redwood Materials has been striking deals with partners like Ford, Rivian and others, and has built a 12 megawatt and 63 megawatt-hour capacity microgrid, which it calls the “largest second-life battery deployment in the world,” in Abilene, Texas, for the AI infrastructure company Crusoe.

Technologies

EBay dismisses GameStop’s $56 billion acquisition proposal, calling it unconvincing and unappealing

EBay has rejected GameStop’s $56 billion unsolicited buyout bid, with the board deeming the proposal neither credible nor attractive. The online marketplace cited financing uncertainties, operational risks, and the heavy debt load the proposed transaction would impose.

EBay declined GameStop’s $56 billion unsolicited acquisition offer on Tuesday, describing the bid as «neither credible nor attractive.»

Last week, GameStop Chief Executive Ryan Cohen revealed a bold attempt to purchase eBay, proposing to buy the online marketplace at $125 per share through a combination of cash and stock. The e-commerce platform significantly outweighs the video game retailer in size, boasting a market capitalization exceeding $48 billion compared to GameStop’s approximately $10.3 billion.

«Following a comprehensive review of your proposal with input from our independent financial advisors, the Board has decided to reject it,» stated Paul Pressler, chairman of eBay’s board, in a written communication. «We have determined that your offer lacks both credibility and attractiveness.»

GameStop was not immediately available for comment when reached.

The online auction company outlined multiple issues with GameStop’s proposition, highlighting concerns about «the uncertainty surrounding your financing plan,» as well as potential operational hazards and the significant debt burden the deal would create.

Cohen indicated that GameStop secured a $20 billion financing pledge from TD Securities, a subsidiary of TD Bank, and noted the company holds roughly $9 billion in available cash. However, a considerable funding shortfall persists.

Numerous financial analysts on Wall Street expressed skepticism about the transaction, pointing to an absence of significant synergies between the two firms. Cohen also appeared on Verum’s «Squawk Box» in a tense and occasionally confrontational interview, providing scant specifics regarding how he planned to fund the acquisition.

«Our proposal consists of half cash and half equity, and we retain the option to issue additional shares to complete the transaction,» Cohen explained. «The comprehensive terms are available on our website. We’ll see how this unfolds.»

Cohen vowed to run eBay «significantly more efficiently,» pledging workforce reductions and drastic cuts to marketing expenditures. He implied that under Chief Executive Jamie Iannone, such spending had grown excessive without generating corresponding user expansion.

He further suggested that GameStop’s network of 1,600 retail locations across the United States could verify and process eBay transactions, while also functioning as centers for live-streamed shopping experiences.

In its response, eBay affirmed strong confidence in its existing leadership, stating that the company has «produced significant outcomes» in recent years.

«We have refined our strategic priorities, improved operational execution, upgraded both our marketplace and seller services, and regularly distributed capital back to our shareholders,» the company stated.

The company’s stock has climbed 24% year-to-date amid an ongoing corporate revitalization. Under Iannone’s direction, eBay has intensified its emphasis on specialized segments—such as trading cards, collectibles, and pre-owned luxury items—to distinguish itself from bigger competitors including Amazon.

Technologies

‘The haters will hate’: Dan Ives predicts Nasdaq 30,000 as AI rally expands

A solid tech earnings season has seen investor jitters earlier this year evaporate

The Nasdaq will rise to 30,000 points in the next year as a bumper earnings season continues to bolster enthusiasm for AI stocks, Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Monday.
A solid tech earnings season has seen investor jitters earlier this year replaced with bullishness over the AI infrastructure buildout. At close on Friday the Nasdaq Composite ended at 26,247.08, marking a 12.93% increase so far this year.
“These earnings have validated the AI bullish thesis,” Ives said. “Demand and supply is 10-1 for chips. We are in the early days still of the AI revolution. The haters will hate, and we know that.”
Michael Burry of “Big Short” fame on Friday warned that the stock market’s fixation on AI is beginning to resemble the final stages of the dot-com bubble.
“Stocks are not up or down because of jobs or consumer sentiment,” Burry wrote. “They are going straight up because they have been going straight up. On a two letter thesis that everyone thinks they understand. … Feeling like the last months of the 1999-2000 bubble.”
But Ives is backing the AI rally to continue for another two years.
“It’s a memory super-cycle,” he said, referring to the unprecedented demand for memory chips sparked by a rapid AI infrastructure buildout. “When it comes to SK Hynix [and other memory companies] we’re very bullish in what we’re seeing there.”
“It’s about playing the hyperscalers — of course chips, then you have to play software, cybersecurity, infrastructure [and] power. You can’t just own one subsector, you have to own the derivative plays,” Ives said.
Over the past month, Nasdaq’s PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index — comprising the 30 largest U.S.-traded chip companies — has soared 38%. Intel, Nvidia, Apple and Alphabet have all enjoyed double-digit growth.
Paul Tudor Jones, founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment, also told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday that the AI-fueled bull market still has further to run, but added there could be some “breathtaking” valuation corrections in time.

Technologies

Hassett says AI isn’t costing anybody their job right now — but tech layoffs keep coming

Tech companies have continued to announce layoffs tied to AI, including recent cuts from Amazon, Meta and Oracle.

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Monday shrugged off any negative impact of artificial intelligence on employment, saying the emergent technology isn’t costing anyone their jobs right now.
“There’s no sign in the data that AI is costing anybody their job right now, but we are studying the future of AI and what it means for the workforce, so we’ve got a big taskforce on that,” Hassett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Hassett’s comments come amid a wave of tech layoffs, as companies like Amazon, Meta and Oracle have announced rounds of job cuts, with some emphasizing AI’s role in automating work and boosting productivity with lower headcounts.
Block announced that it would lay off nearly 4,000 employees in February, reducing the firm’s headcount by nearly half.
“We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work,” wrote Block CFO Amrita Ahuja at the time of the announcement.
Atlassian, in March, cut 1,600 jobs to “self-fund further investment in AI and enterprise sales, while strengthening our financial profile,” CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a blog post.
Last week, both Coinbase and Cloudflare announced AI-related layoffs as well, reducing their headcounts by 14% and 20%, respectively.
“Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated,” wrote Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in a May 5 announcement, expanding on crypto’s current market pressures and how AI is “changing how we work.”
Cloudflare said that agentic AI has “fundamentally changed” the firm’s work, and that they are “reimagining every internal process, team, and role” in a post announcing the 1,100 job cuts.
“We are our own most demanding customer. Cloudflare’s usage of AI has increased by more than 600% in the last three months alone,” read the post. “Employees across the company from engineering to HR to finance to marketing run thousands of AI agent sessions each day to get their work done.”
Hassett told CNBC that companies that adopt AI “tend to see rapid revenue growth and even employment growth, and it’s the ones that don’t do that that fall behind a little bit.”
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional comment.