Things escalated, folks. They got a C&D:

https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-orders-invidious-privacy-software-to-shut-down-in-7-days-230609/

Start backing up the source repos now.

Surprising no one who's ever had to work with it for longer than sixty seconds.

If you're already rich as shit and don't have to worry about any consequences for anything you do, why not?

NSA? Yes. CIA? Probably not. They don't have that kind of imagination. c.f., the internal parody of The Hunt for Red October they declassified about a decade ago.