Could the following part be corrected or better phrased:
Any recipient with a domain that is not an accepted domain in your tenant is considered an external recipient and when a message is sent to them it will count against your quota (exceptions to this are noted below). This includes messages sent to recipients in other Microsoft 365 tenants.
This is causing confusion for some because it causes them to believe simply adding the domain without connecting it to Exchange Online is enough to be considered an internal recipient. Perhaps phrasing it as Any recipient with a domain that is not connected to Exchange Online in your tenant is considered an external recipient.