NSO Group isn't like Cozy Bear -- it's not a code name for an unknown probable nation-state APT. It's an Israeli company that sells hacking tools used by the Saudis (among others).
NSO Group was "tied to America" in a legal sense relevant to WhatsApp's lawsuit. There's no implication that it was, like, secretly the NSA or something. Just that this Israeli company rented US-based servers from a US-based company, and this invalidates some legal defenses they're using to fight WhatsApp's lawsuit.
If they didn't rent those servers, it would be very easy for them to say to the court "we did not rent those servers, our clients did". Notably, they did not say this. Probably because they did rent the servers, and if subpoenaed the hosting provider would produce receipts showing that. And then NSO's lawyers would get disbarred.