Meta/WhatsApp could be weasel-wording here, where they technically do have "end to end encryption"... but also a process which bypasses it.

That might mean access to the automatic chat-backups which by default are not end-to-end encrypted (so that Archetypal Aunt Tillie can get her chats back when her phone is lost) or some mechanism that controls the client-program.

By default, WhatsApp chats are backed up to Google (Apple?) storage in an unencrypted form.