It's not complicated. LIDAR hardware was in short supply during COVID. Elon obviously couldn't slow down production and sink the inflated stock price.
WTF was their calculus on the break-even liability point? The "if we do this, we save X amount of money, but stand to lose Y in lawsuits for cases where the usage of LIDAR could have otherwise prevented it."
April 2019: https://www.youtube.com/live/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=9220s
There are probably even earlier statements from him against lidar...