One thing most of Tesla's competitors all have in common is that they don't have functional self driving tech either. Tesla will buy from a startup, if it buys

One thing most of Tesla's competitors all have in common is that they don't have functional self driving tech either. Tesla will buy from a startup, if it buys at all. So I don't think your line of reasoning is valid. Remember: having tech is one thing, getting it to market at scale and sorting out legal and regulatory issues, cross-border issues, distribution agreements, etc. is quite another. Tesla has done this before and thus presents a nontrivial value-add for tech holders, quite aside from "money on table now".