The Information has published an exclusive look at how Mujeeb Ijaz, the embattled founder of Michigan battery startup Our Next Energy (ONE), plotted his way back to the top job. The story covers one of the strangest leadership arcs in U.S. clean tech: a founder pushed aside during a cash crunch who then retook control of the company he built. Only the headline was available to us, so the details below combine that report with what’s already on the public record.
⚡ Quick Take
- Who: Mujeeb Ijaz, founder of Our Next Energy, a battery maker based in Novi, Michigan.
- What: The Information reports on how Ijaz planned his return after he was replaced as CEO during the company’s financial crisis.
- When: ONE named Ijaz CEO again on March 6, 2025. He took over from Paul Humphries, who had run the company since December 2023.
- How: His return came with a new funding round led by Crescent Ventures and Trousdale Ventures. The board also changed, adding Ijaz’s brother Mansoor Ijaz and Trousdale general partner Hinrich Woebcken.
- Why it matters: U.S. battery capacity has turned into a strategic asset. The power crunch from AI data centers is a big reason why.
🔋 How ONE Got Here
Ijaz founded ONE in 2020 after engineering stints at Apple and A123 Systems. The startup grew quickly. It became Washington’s “poster child” for American-made batteries, announced a big Michigan gigafactory and attracted serious venture money.
Then things went wrong. ONE missed fundraising targets as EV demand cooled and capital got tighter. Layoffs followed. Late in 2023 the board brought in Humphries, a veteran manufacturing executive, to steady the company, and Ijaz stepped back from the CEO role.
In clean tech, a founder’s story usually ends there. This one didn’t.
🔄 Why the Comeback Stands Out
The structure of the return is what makes it unusual. Ijaz didn’t just get his old title back. His return arrived together with fresh capital and a board that looked a lot more friendly to him. With his brother joining the board next to a lead investor, he came back with real control, not a symbolic role.
What stands out here is the governance angle. Hardware startups that burn through cash usually end with the founder pushed out for good and professional managers left to clean up. Ijaz flipped that story by lining up his own investors. That’s the backroom maneuvering The Information appears to unpack.
The arrangement raises fair questions too:
- Board independence: Family members on the board can speed up decisions. They can also weaken oversight.
- Investor alignment: The new backers clearly bet on the founder’s vision over the turnaround plan.
- Execution risk: Battery manufacturing eats capital. A new cap table doesn’t change the cost of building factories.
🤖 The AI Connection
Why is a battery story showing up in AI coverage? Because power has become the AI industry’s biggest bottleneck.
Hyperscalers are building data centers faster than utilities can connect them. That makes grid-scale and on-site energy storage a hot market. Storage smooths out renewable supply, helps with peak demand and keeps facilities running during outages. U.S. manufacturers with domestic supply chains and LFP chemistry, the lower-cost, longer-lasting cell type ONE built its name on, are well placed to win that demand.
For anyone following AI infrastructure, ONE is a reminder that the compute race runs on an energy supply chain with its own messy startup dramas. Not every bet on batteries will survive, and leadership chaos is one of the fastest ways to lose ground.
👀 What to Watch Next
- Funding: Watch whether ONE can raise follow-on capital beyond the 2025 round.
- Customer wins: Contracts in grid or data center storage would show the comeback is working.
- Manufacturing scale: Progress at its Michigan plant will show whether it can actually ship.
- Policy: Changes to U.S. clean energy incentives could help or hurt domestic battery makers.
Ijaz won the boardroom fight. Now he has to win in the market, where the demand from AI-driven power needs is real and so is the competition. You can find the full story of how the comeback came together in The Information’s exclusive.