Redwood Materials scores a new $2 billion loan to build out battery recycling facility in Nevada
JB Straubel sits down with CNBC’s Phil LeBeau at Redwood Materials.
Redwood Materials has attained a $2 billion loan commitment from the Department of Energy, the agency announced on Thursday via its loan programs office.
The battery-recycling startup will use the funding to build and expand its battery recycling facility outside of Reno, Nevada. The facility takes end-of-life electric vehicle batteries and automotive production scrap, processes these, and churns out raw materials and products that are used to make new EV battery cells, namely anode copper foil and cathode-active materials.
Redwood Materials was founded by former Tesla CTO and cofounder JB Straubel in 2017 during his tenure at Elon Musk’s car company.
Straubel left Tesla to run Redwood Materials full-time in 2019, and several former Tesla employees have joined him there including COO Kevin Kassekert, who previously worked as a vice president of people and places at Tesla.
As CNBC previously reported, last year Redwood Materials struck a multi-billion dollar deal with Tesla supplier Panasonic.
“These are very capital-intensive projects, and we’re in a competition with Asia to ramp this up and to bring these supply chains and manufacturing operations back to the US,” said Straubel on CNBC’s The Exchange on Thursday.
He added, “The US battery demand and EV demand is growing…but we have a long way before that supply chain is predominantly moved to the US.”
The Director of the DOE’s Loan Programs Office, Jigar Shah, wrote in a post about the new loan commitment:
“In order to meet the needs of the rapidly growing EV market, the United States will need to expand battery recycling capabilities, as well as grow our domestic capacity for producing battery precursor materials. By lowering the cost of the critical materials for lithium-ion batteries using recycled materials, electric vehicles can become more accessible to lower income communities.”
With the aim of lowering greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, President Joe Biden pushed for and signed the $430 billion U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022. The DOE’s new loan to Redwood Materials comes in part from that law, which has so far resulted in more than 100,000 new green jobs being announced.
The DOE says it appropriated $55 billion in new estimated loan authority for its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program through the IRA. This same program once helped Tesla get its start — and Tesla repaid their loan early and grew into a juggernaut, in sharp contrast with cleantech companies that fizzled like Solyndra, for example.
Redwood Materials has a pilot line up and running for production of anode copper foil in Nevada already. It is aiming to support the production of more than 1 million EVs per year, the DOE said in its post, which could help drivers avoid an estimated 3.5 million tons of CO2 and other tailpipe emissions, annually.
While Tesla may have been the birthplace of Redwood Materials, and a partner of the company today, it could compete with the recyclers on technology eventually. In its 2022 annual financial filing with the SEC, Tesla said, “We have agreements with third party battery recycling companies to recycle our battery packs and we are also piloting our own recycling technology.”
George Kurtz, chief executive officer of Crowdstrike Inc., speaks during the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
CrowdStrike shares fell 7% in extended trading on Tuesday after the security software maker issued a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast.
Here’s how the company did against LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: 73 cents, adjusted vs. 65 cents expected
- Revenue: $1.10 billion vs. $1.10 billion expected
Revenue increased by nearly 20% in the fiscal first quarter, which ended on April 30, according to a statement. The company registered a net loss of $110.2 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with net income of $42.8 million, or 17 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.
Costs rose in sales and marketing as well as in research and development and administration, partly because of a broad software outage last summer.
For the current quarter, CrowdStrike called for 82 cents to 84 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $1.14 billion to $1.15 million in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG were expecting 81 cents per share and $1.16 billion in revenue.
CrowdStrike bumped up its guidance for full-year earnings but maintained its expectation for revenue. The company now sees $3.44 to $3.56 in adjusted earnings per share, with $4.74 billion to $4.81 billion in revenue. The LSEG consensus was $3.43 per share and $4.77 billion in revenue. The earnings guidance provided in March was $3.33 to $3.45 in adjusted earnings per share.
Also on Tuesday, CrowdStrike said it had earmarked $1 billion for share buybacks.
“Today’s announced share repurchase reflects our confidence in CrowdStrike’s future and unwavering mission of stopping breaches,” CEO George Kurtz said in the statement.
As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was up 43% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index had gained less than 2%.
Executives will discuss the results on a conference call with analysts starting at 5 p.m. ET.
WATCH: Trade Tracker: Malcolm Ethridge buys more CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Spotify and Oracle
An attendee wearing a cow costume while playing Mario Kart World by Nintendo Switch 2 during the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience at the Excel London international exhibition and convention centre in London on April 11, 2025.
Isabel Infantes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday talked up the capabilities of Nintendo‘s new Switch 2, days before the long-awaited console is set to hit store shelves.
In a video posted by Nintendo, Huang called the chip inside the Switch 2 “unlike anything we’ve built before.”
“It brings together three breakthroughs: The most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device, full hardware ray tracing, high dynamic range for brighter highlights and deeper shadows, and an architecture that supports backward compatibility,” Huang said.
He added that the console has dedicated artificial intelligence processors to “sharpen, animate and enhance gameplay in real time.”
Huang’s comments come as Nintendo prepares to release the Switch 2 on Thursday. The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s first new console in eight years, and it is expected to be a bigger and faster version of its predecessor. The device costs $449.99.
Huang also paid tribute to the vision of former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, who died before the original Switch was released.
“Switch 2 is more than a new console,” Huang said. “It’s a new chapter worthy of Iwata Son’s vision.”
WATCH: Nintendo expects to sell 15 million units of the Switch 2
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