TBF only majority ownership, which Bytedance already does not have (Bytedance which is also owned 60% by foreign investors). The current situation is already quite a bit like these 'previous OEMs'.

Yep. Tesla is actually the outlier here where China gave them the special treatment.

Now China has their own formidable EVs now. Would China say gave us shares or f** off to Tesla?

Reading the Musk biography, it seems like they just had the right people who really knew the Chinese government try extra hard to convince them to grant the exception to Tesla.

I personally think its more than that. We have firms here in the US that tear down the Teslas, deeply analyze the cars and sell the reports to whoever will buy (essentially other car companies). The Chinese are snapping up all the Tesla reports and multiple firms that do this work are reporting that the Chinese only want Tesla, they are offered info on the other OEMs and they don't care at all.

It seems like the Chinese know that Tesla is their primary competition. We see it in their actions as well. When Tesla announced "giga castings" for their cars, the Chinese companies were the first to jump on that train as fast as possible. Everyone else was still debating wether or not if it was worth the cost.

[1]:https://youtu.be/L8LN6Vnnyfo?t=1532