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Most users activate WhatsApp's suggested "backup" feature which uploads all chats and those are most likely not E2E encrypted. And of course Meta could just directly read and upload stuff from the app, they probably buried a vague clause for that somewhere in their agreement.

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Those backups are sent to Google and Apple, not to Meta.

They are E2E encrypted now in recent versions.

No, you have the option, disabled by default, to enable backup encryption. And there are two ways to enable it, one with a short password that when used Meta can always unencrypt the backup themselves and another with a 64 digit key, which AFAIK is unaudited.

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