Animals also have (non)-artificial general intelligence. That doesn't mean Tesla's making a reasonable design choice if they build something in a way that relies on having that kind of capability.
The way I imagine it, Elon made Andrej put in that slide about "We are effectively building a 'synthetic animal' from the ground up." It vaguely hints at a small-scale AGI. A little bit of Andrej's soul dies when he has to says those ridiculous words, but he views this as the price he has to pay to have his dream job. Anyhow, that's how it would have played out if i had Andrej's job.
Animals also have (non)-artificial general intelligence. That doesn't mean Tesla's making a reasonable design choice if they build something in a way that relies on having that kind of capability.