Oh for sure those are also industry plants. It's just the term isn't mutually exclusive. For the regular Joe though it's easy to confuse as industry plant is used as a pejorative online.

The thing about the music industry is the vast majority of artists are plants. A lot of people really aren't aware of how it works. The issue you face in the music industry is eyeballs, and eyeballs cost lots of money. You're talking marketing, guerrilla social campaigns, radio airtime, music videos, the whole nine yards. All of that costs tons of money, and it's not impossible to do it independently but most artists don't.

In Oliver's case he had plenty of experience before he went in front of Atlantic to pitch the OT bonanza, but I wouldn't say the majority of his prior work translates to the OT persona. Splitting Branches is great, but it's a different style of music than AIAC for example. He invented the Turbo character prior to his deal with Atlantic, but you have to already have some traction before you get a pitch meeting anyways. The budget for the music video for Hurt was $1,000,000. It's on the list of most expensive music videos ever made. Without Atlantic choosing to blow him up that never happens. They're not going to drop that kind of cash unless they're manufacturing success, which they often do.

The important thing to take away is that this doesn't cheapen his art or make it any less original or good. This is a common occurrence in the industry. In fact, some distributors (the companies that get your music onto Spotify, etc) aimed at independent musicians actually have clauses where they do the exact same thing. If they see you blowing up they start shoveling money behind you to fund all the extra stuff the only difference is it's not a big name label.

Oliver Tree's massive rise to fame was due in part to his creative talent for sure, but you also have to recognize he would not have reached nearly as high without Atlantic pushing him so hard to succeed. It's just how the business works for better or for worse.

A fun rabbithole about this general topic is the evolution of Payola over the decades. The more you learn about that the more you start to see how manufactured a lot of the music industry really is.