Redwood Materials

JB Straubel holds a B.S. in energy systems engineering and an M.S. in energy engineering from Stanford University. He joined Tesla as its fifth employee in 2004 and served as co-founder and inaugural CTO for 15 years, leading battery cell design, supply chain strategy, and the first Gigafactory concept through the production ramp of the Model 3. Straubel founded Redwood Materials in 2017 to build a closed-loop domestic battery supply chain, recycling spent lithium-ion cells into anode copper foil and cathode active material for new battery production. He was elected to Tesla's board of directors in 2023 and has raised billions for Redwood's Nevada and South Carolina facilities.