I think the key here is batteries. The utilities will fight (lobby) to give themselves the upper hand when it comes to buying solar power from consumers. Tesla plans to make lots of batteries. Batteries also happen to be good solution to these legislative issues.
A match made in... the backroom?
It's not about brand at this point, it's about economies of scale and production?
Its about sidestepping regulatory capture. If you can drive battery costs down far enough, you don't need net metering subsidies than can be taken away on a whim.
Converting to metered grids (on which consumers can sell) costs a small fortune, often for very little benefit. Even environmentalists have been weighing in against it as wasteful.
Tesla's home battery solution offers an obvious response to this situation - you can minimize or avoid grid sell-off by doing in-home storage to smooth demand. That has the potential to make SolarCity an incomparable player in non-metered markets, keeping with Musk's general "no viable competitors" ethos.
Also, Tesla automobiles are giant batteries themselves. If you're looking at demand shifting, it's rarely a bad thing to have two days of storage capacity plugged in all night. I think that is where the true magic happens, converting non net metering markets to profitability.
A match made in... the backroom?
It's not about brand at this point, it's about economies of scale and production?