"TSLA rose on the news despite diluting shareholders is because coupled with the announcement, Elon Musk mentions that he will personally put an additional 100mil into the secondary offer"

Dilution doesn't care who does the diluting - a share issued to Elon Musk dilutes as much as a share issued to TIAA-CREF. Regarding the double down, I do not believe Elon Musk's commitment to Tesla was in doubt previously. Its effects were probably limited to the marketing of the issue.

More critical is: (a) TSLA maturing to where it can issue debt (albeit, of the convertible type), (b) its extrication from a volatile political situation, and, (c) its new liquidity buffer. I do not think it is appropriate to characterise it as a "PR ploy". As you mentioned, they are still unit loss-making - that those losses need to be financed is more than superficial.