The first claim isn't true, because Elon has been a bitcoiner for a long time. There was a huge Bitcoin hype / hubris at that time. Specifically, Saylor happene

The first claim isn't true, because Elon has been a bitcoiner for a long time. There was a huge Bitcoin hype / hubris at that time. Specifically, Saylor happened, and he convinced Elon and others that Bitcoin is the best reserve asset, and Tesla had a lot of cash, which was melting like an ice cube due to inflation. There was a lot of inflation talk / protecting against inflation. And in the end it actually worked out for them pretty well, given that BTC has about tripled since then (they bough at $34k). After they had bought the bitcoin, adding it as a payment option was a way to add hype to increase its value. They quickly found out that it's too volatile for payments to be practical, and the hype cycle was ending anyway and they sold half of their reserve.