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I don't know about either anything factual, but I believe it was said that WhatsApp crux in the e2e is the iCloud backup. I believe that's where your old message get restored from.

I believe you can also disable that iCloud backup and thus the ability to retrieve those messages with a new phone.

End-to-End means encrypted in transport and not saved (in any form that is decryptable) on their servers. To that, I believe whatsapp fulfills their end of the bargain.

WhatsApp for Android doesn't seamlessly fetch and decrypt messages on new installations; you have to set up Google Drive backups from your old phone, and then set up restore from those backups on your new phone.

Last time I switched phones, Whatsapp did not restore my old message history. Facebook did, but that was before E2E.