Saudi Arabia Now Owns 93% of EA After $55B Deal Closes

When the consortium behind EA's $55 billion buyout announced the deal's completion yesterday, the press release read like three equal partners celebrating a shared victory. Jared Kushner talked about inspiring creators. Silver Lake's CEO talked about AI-enhanced player experiences. PIF's deputy governor talked about strategic focus areas. Everyone got a quote. Everyone sounded like a co-owner.

But the numbers paint a very different picture. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund owns 93 percent of EA. Not a third. Not a majority stake. Ninety-three percent. Silver Lake and Affinity Partners are in the deal, yes, but calling this a consortium of three is like calling a meal a collaboration between the chef, the garnish, and the napkin.

Who Actually Bought EA

PIF is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with estimated total assets of $900 billion. Its purpose is to diversify Saudi Arabia's economy beyond oil, and gaming has become one of its primary vehicles. Through PIF and its subsidiary Savvy Games Group, Saudi Arabia has already acquired stakes in Nintendo, Take-Two Interactive, Capcom, Nexon, and SNK, and completed the full acquisition of Scopely in 2023. EA is the crown jewel of that portfolio, and it's not close.

Affinity Partners, meanwhile, is owned by Kushner, who is President Trump's son-in-law and currently serves as a Special Envoy for Peace in the Middle East. Most of Affinity's funding came from PIF itself, which invested $2 billion in the fund shortly after Kushner left the White House at the end of Trump's first term. Kushner and Affinity Partners are currently under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee over alleged conflicts of interest between his diplomatic role and the capital he's raised from sovereign wealth funds. So when you see three names on this deal, understand that the money largely flows from one source.

As reported by Game Developer, the $55 billion transaction was financed through a combination of cash from the consortium members and a rollover of PIF's existing minority stake in EA, constituting an equity investment of approximately $36 billion. JPMorgan Chase Bank provided $20 billion in debt financing on top of that. EA's stock has been delisted from NASDAQ, and former shareholders received $210 per share in cash.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson, who stays on to lead the now-private company from its Redwood City headquarters, offered the expected corporate optimism in the press release:

"This moment recognizes the extraordinary people whose creativity, ambition and passion have made EA one of the world's leading interactive entertainment companies. We're entering this next chapter from a position of strength with partners who share our vision and ambition. Together, we'll invest boldly, accelerate innovation, and build the next generation of games and experiences for the hundreds of millions of players and fans who inspire us every day."

I've read a lot of press releases in this job, and this one is doing an enormous amount of heavy-duty euphemism work. "Partners who share our vision" is doing a lot when one partner owns 93 percent of the company and chairs a government accused by Amnesty International of executing a record number of individuals in a single year, torturing prisoners, severely limiting freedom of expression, discriminating against women in law and practice, and criminalizing same-sex relations.

What Goes Dark Now

The immediate practical consequence of going private is that EA's earnings calls are over. No more quarterly revenue breakdowns, no more player count disclosures, no more public data on how individual franchises are performing. For an industry that already struggles with transparency, losing visibility into one of its largest publishers is a real loss. When EA makes decisions about studios, layoffs, or game cancellations, the public will learn about them when EA chooses to share, and not before.

The questions hanging over this deal are serious. As Game Informer noted, the futures of BioWare's next Mass Effect, Motive Studio's Iron Man game, and a reported third Star Wars Jedi title at Respawn are all uncertain under new ownership. EA insisted last year that it would retain creative control and that the deal wouldn't result in "immediate" layoffs, but that word "immediate" is doing a suspicious amount of work. The United Videogame Workers union flagged at the time of the announcement that studios deemed "less profitable" could be at risk.

Employees and players have both expressed anger over the acquisition, particularly given EA's ownership of The Sims, a franchise that has been at the forefront of LGBTQ+ representation in gaming for over two decades. During a talk at Develop last month, a Sims developer said of a hypothetical mandate to reduce the game's diversity: "I haven't heard anything coming down the pipe. I don't think it's gonna happen and I would fight it tooth and nail." I hope that developer is right. But individual conviction doesn't override ownership directives forever, and the people signing the checks now answer to a government that criminalizes the identities The Sims has spent years celebrating.

This is the second-largest deal in gaming history, and the largest all-cash take-private transaction ever. The consortium framing makes it sound like a group effort. The 93 percent figure makes it clear who's in charge. EA is now, in all but name, a Saudi Arabian-owned company. Every game it ships, every studio it funds or closes, every creative decision it makes or reverses will flow from that reality.