This is a standard legal argument used as a defence against allegations of fraud, and it’s not a judgment of how successful (or not) the product is. The only thing it means is “notwithstanding whether we’ve achieved our goals, we have been honest and well-intentioned”.
Well, that's also the thing - internal docs and interviews have shown that Musk was well aware that "FSD will be here, this year", year after year, was not ever going to be true.
"“Tesla indicated that Elon is extrapolating on the rates of improvement when speaking about L5 capabilities. Tesla couldn’t say if the rate of improvement would make it to L5 by end of calendar year”, the document showed.
Sources: https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/a-leaked-m... | https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-a...