Ah, but you're overlooking the extremely strong possibility that the contract Broder / NYT signed as part of borrowing the test vehicle authorized Tesla to use

Ah, but you're overlooking the extremely strong possibility that the contract Broder / NYT signed as part of borrowing the test vehicle authorized Tesla to use the onboard telemetry in any way Tesla sees fit. Furthermore, this situation is extremely dissimilar to a private individual lending a car to another private individual to do things where the borrower has a reasonable expectation of privacy.