Not that I want to defend Musk, but

The whole carbon credits thing

I suppose here he just used something that was present, like many other entities

Other companies have largely eaten their lunch, launching solid EV’s that rival or better Tesla

Yes, only after Tesla show that it is possible to make a nice EV car. Do you remember all the EV cars before Tesla.

Their reputation was built off of the end-goal of mass-producing affordable EV’s, something they will now not do.

Given they started from scratch, I’d say the are not that bad