Even if we sold out, at most they could get control over lemmy.ml and the git repository. Other instances are under no obligation to upgrade to new Lemmy versions, and could switch to a forked project if needed. The vast majority of Lemmy isnt under our control at all (which is the major difference compared to Reddit).

that's only true for the minority of instances on the lemmverse and the american government likes to use "bread and stick" tactics to force people to do things.

Well, not to the US at least.