See but the thing is you were able to recover your deposit I think that this is the biggest portion of this to remember. Tesla knew they weren't going to be able to keep up with production and hit the quotas needed to sell all of the cars that people put deposits on -- this was something that was known of a company which has struggled to hit deadlines for so long. Elon Musk knew this, and made it so people could get their money back -- if he didn't know this, he would have made it so that wasn't able to be recovered and you'd just have to wait for the car (plus it's providing capital to a company which needs it, another reason not to give the money back)
Sorry, I don't see it as a business genius move. I'm quite sure that Tesla's lawyers told Elon that taking deposits and not delivering the car would be a scam so he didn't have much of a choice. However pissing away the goodwill of hundreds of thousands of potential customers who were happy to hand him $1000 and wait a year for the car is just plain dumb. Now they've scrapped the early reservations completely - anyone can order the car with a $5000
non-refundable deposit. I hope there are no problems with demand because that latest money grab is starting to sound desperate.