My hunch was that Ford offered to buy Tesla when Ford stopped producing cars (except for the Mustang) in the US, and that Musk rejected Ford's offer. History will hopefully let us know.

My bet is on Ford, because car companies with superior technology to their competitors have failed quite often over the last century. It is much eaiser to learn to build EVs from ICE than it is to learn to scale up car company (paraphrasing Bob Lutz).

Lucid, Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, Lamborghini, etc. are all starting to cut into the Model S sales, and that is where Tesla makes its money. The Ford, Hyundai, Kia, etc. are really starting to make good mid-range cars in the west, and China is producing lots of them domestically. Time is NOT on Tesla's side as a car company.

In the end, I have always seen Tesla like Paypal. Something Musk bought into in order to grow and sell at a huge profit. Nothing yet has changed my opinion in the last 10+ years.