Complete Solaria Names T.J. Rodgers CEO

FREMONT, Calif., April 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --  Complete Solaria, Inc. (“Complete Solaria” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: CSLR) today announced that T.J. Rodgers will become the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Rodgers said, “First, I would like to thank Chris Lundell, our current CEO, who came in at the board’s request to stabilize the company during a stressful period of rapid headcount reduction. Chris will remain on the Company’s board. Moving forward, I believe in the Company’s mission and I will step up to the CEO job to use my experience at fund raising and M&A to help it succeed. That said, I will resign as CEO when one of two endpoints occurs: success, when we are on a solid economic footing and growing rapidly – or failure, when I believe that the chokehold our private equity debt holders have on us will prevent the company from ever being successful.”

Will Anderson, Complete Solaria founder and board member said, “I founded Complete Solaria in 2010, and am proud of the great progress we made in the last year. Our quarterly operating expense has dropped from $12 million in 2023 to a forecasted $3.6 million this quarter. We have fixed many field quality problems by changing the way we work with our new VP of Quality, Linda DeJulio. Our ex-Cypress executives Minh Pham and Perry Cruz, have cut our installation cycle time to half of what it used to be. In medical terms, our financial condition is ‘critical but stable,’ but we will be able to get through this quarter without more funding, although the undeclared default Carlyle’s Andew Kapp resolutely holds over us has convinced many of our vendors to cut off our credit, severely limiting our revenue because we cannot afford to buy and install the systems for which we already have orders.”

Rodgers observed, “I have never worked with investors that deliberately harm their companies. I am a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose first company, Cypress Semiconductor, was funded by iconic Sand Hill Road firms: Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, and Mayfield – all storied and ethical venture funds that exist to build companies not only with funding but also with their direct involvement – just as I am now doing at Complete Solaria. I believe the stark contrast between Silicon Valley’s incubator methods and Carlyle’s classic private equity hardball tactics is why Silicon Valley companies, along with Microsoft, occupy the top nine positions on the prestigious S&P 500 – while N.Y. private equity, despite having trillions of dollars, is a no-show on the S&P 500 down to the No. 11 slot, now filled by the 153-year old J.P. Morgan. As a counter example, the little Silicon Valley firm I helped out in 2017, Enphase Energy, is now worth $15 billion. In 2020, it was invited to join the S&P 500, replacing Tiffany – and then became the S&P’s fastest growing company for a record three consecutive years. I helped that ailing startup with no compensation other than the return I earned on the investment I made, in order to help out John Doerr, Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, to repay him for the 10 years he spent on Cypress’s board helping me. Silicon Valley believes in and builds companies; we don’t threaten to put people out of business or confiscate their assets – that’s what thugs do.”