I have never heard such a thing from Elon. Never! He DID say:
Musk said on a conference call last week that Tesla has the wherewithal to sell cars at "zero profit" and then earn immense sums later off driverless software.
economictimes.indiatimes.com
Of course I chose to use the India Times quotation, just for the sake of Gujarati support!
He definitely said 'zero profit' if necessary but NOT zero FCF. Tesla did not even sell original Roadsters at zero positive cash flow impact.
Go all the way to even Zip2 and Elon has been obsessed about cash flow. He is acutely aware that accounting profitability has no inherent survival value. Free Cash Flow does have survival value. Bankruptcy comes to those who have no cash. Profits, on the other hand, are relevant, but only when those profits enhance cash flow. Regularly companies with accounting profits and negative cash flow can and do fail. Companies with negative cash flow rarely can long survive, even with government ownership. Lest anyone does not understand that, most of those have some sort of fraud and/or accounting failures. Free cash Flow is harder to mistake, partly due to traditionally tighter accounting treatment of cash.
Elon NEVER understates the importance of cash flow. He's faced crises of cash flow with both SpaceX and Tesla and has, if anything, overstated cash flow risks.