I can't speak to powerlifting as it's never been my strong suit. I've likely only been to a handful of powerlifting meets and they only were for benchpressing.

Deadlifting as an exercise is actually one of the three main lifts in powerlifting. What makes the best powerlifters is a high total weight combination of Bench/Squat/Deadlift which is generally how it's judged in most competitions these days.

I think there's a small line between deadlifting and what weightlifters like us would call cleaning. A deadlift is a lower-back dominant exercise, to build power and strength there. A clean is a similar movement of getting weight off the ground and into the air, but is completely leg and upper-body dominant, with many, many other accessory movements in-between. This is why we see Crossfit athletes implement weightlifting into their training and why it is so popular today- because of the rewarding "total body" strength gains and cardiovascular fitness.