Electronic Arts confirmed this week that its $55 billion sale to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has officially closed, ending the video game publisher’s 33-year run as a publicly traded company. The deal, first announced in September 2025, also includes private equity firm Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, the investment firm founded by Jared Kushner.
The transaction stands as the largest leveraged buyout in history, surpassing the 2007 takeover of hospital chain HCA Healthcare. Shareholders received $210 per share in cash, a roughly 25 percent premium over EA’s stock price before the deal was announced. EA shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq this week as the company transitioned to private ownership.
How the Deal Came Together
PIF was not a new face in EA’s boardroom. The Saudi fund had held a stake of roughly 9 to 10 percent in the publisher for several years through its gaming arm, Savvy Games Group, which also controls esports organizer ESL, tournament operator VSPO, and mobile game maker Scopely. That existing position gave PIF a natural path to lead the buyout rather than launch a hostile approach.
Silver Lake, a technology-focused private equity firm with a long history of media and gaming investments, joined as a financial partner, while Affinity Partners rounded out the consortium with a smaller equity stake. Banks led by JPMorgan Chase provided the debt financing that underpinned the deal structure, according to filings tied to the transaction.
EA’s board unanimously approved the offer last fall, and the company’s chief executive, Andrew Wilson, will continue to lead EA under private ownership. In a statement to employees, Wilson said the new ownership structure would let the company “invest for the long term” without the pressure of quarterly earnings reports, pointing to continued development on franchises including Battlefield, The Sims, Madden NFL, Apex Legends, and EA Sports FC, the game formerly known as FIFA.
A Lengthy Regulatory Path
The buyout’s path to completion was not immediate. Because the deal involved a foreign sovereign wealth fund acquiring a company that handles data on tens of millions of American users, it drew scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the interagency panel that reviews deals for national security risk. That review, along with standard antitrust clearance, pushed the closing date well past the initial timeline investors had hoped for when the deal was announced last September.
The involvement of Affinity Partners added another layer of attention. Kushner served as a senior adviser in the first Trump administration and has maintained business ties across the Gulf region since leaving government, a dynamic that lawmakers and watchdog groups flagged as a potential conflict of interest even though Affinity’s stake in the buyout consortium is relatively modest compared to PIF’s.
Concerns From Lawmakers and Advocacy Groups
Saudi Arabia’s growing footprint in American entertainment, technology, and infrastructure has become a recurring flashpoint in Washington, echoing debate seen around the civil nuclear cooperation deal the U.S. is preparing to announce with Riyadh. Human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized PIF’s ties to the Saudi government, pointing to the kingdom’s record on press freedom, LGBTQ rights, and dissent as reasons to question its stewardship of a company whose games reach a global, diverse audience.
Some lawmakers pressed for public commitments that EA’s ownership change would not affect content decisions inside its games, including how titles handle representation and moderation. EA executives have said publicly that creative and editorial control over game content remains with EA’s studios, not its shareholders, though skeptics note that ownership can shape priorities over time even without direct editorial mandates.
Labor advocates within the video game industry have also raised concerns that stem less from the buyer’s nationality than from the mechanics of a leveraged buyout itself. Large LBOs frequently load target companies with new debt used to help finance the acquisition, and past deals of this scale have sometimes been followed by layoffs or divestitures as owners work to service that debt. EA has not announced workforce reductions tied to the closing, but industry analysts say the coming fiscal year will be the clearest signal of how the new owners intend to run the company.
What Happens Next
EA will remain headquartered in Redwood City, California, and the company says its existing slate of live-service games, including Apex Legends and EA Sports FC, will continue receiving planned content updates without interruption. As a private company, EA is no longer required to disclose quarterly earnings, meaning outside visibility into its finances, including any cost-cutting or restructuring, will be far more limited going forward.
For now, the deal marks a significant milestone in the video game industry’s ongoing consolidation, and in Saudi Arabia’s broader strategy of using PIF to build influence across global entertainment and technology sectors, following its previous stakes in gaming companies including Nintendo and Take-Two Interactive.
EA said the transition to private ownership will not immediately change how its studios operate day to day, though the company acknowledged that longer-term strategic decisions will now rest with its new ownership group rather than public shareholders.
