Deleting all stories containing the word "Tesla" is lazy moderation. That policy was in place for at least some period of time.

I think that spending a day trying to moderate /r/technology would make a lot of people understand "why".

Tesla got relevant suddenly with the apple news, then with the texas law, but then it was just spams to get the interest around Tesla going on.

Technology moves quickly and I can see why moderators wanted the discussion not to focus on ONE thing for too long.

I mean, you can sympathize with their bad behavior, but ultimately they were de-listed for it. Their bad behavior was a mistake.

They were also unlisted for having (as you can see) too small moderation team. This is said to be fault of /u/maxwellhill and /u/anutensil. (They are one of the oldest mods -- they have whole power).