Apparently Tesla reserves the right to remove FSD at any time they want, if they find out the new owner hasn't explicitly paid for this feature.
Lotsa misinformation about that story going around.
So first- yes, if you nobody actually paid for FSD, of course they have the right to remove it- why wouldn't they?
In this case though the original owner DID pay for it.
Then sold the car back to Tesla (as a lemon FWIW) at which point Tesla absolutely has the right to remove it for the next sale.
Problem comes in this case that the car itself didn't get updated immediately to remove it it was just flagged in the system to have it removed.
Car went to auction- AFAIK the dealer who bought it did NOT get any paperwork saying it came with FSD.... but when dealer got it it hadn't been updated yet to remove it.
While dealer has the car (and is trying to sell it) Tesla does a routine SW audit, which updates the car and removed FSD.
Dealer
admits they KNEW the features were removed at this point- but since they'd already agreed to sell the car to someone they just figured eh must be a bug and sold it as if it had FSD anyway.
So Alec buys the car thinking it has those things because the 3rd party dealer said so- even though they were
not actually on the car when he took possession of it
Tesla got enough bad PR they ended up giving him FSD for free anyway- but it's not at all a typical case.
I do think Tesla should be better about on-the-spot downgrading cars they buy, instead of relying on after the fact audits/updates that might happen after the car is auctioned off... but they're absolutely
not claiming any "right to remove FSD at any time"