EA Is Being Bought by Saudi Arabia’s PIF and Jared Kushner’s Investment Firm

By Elijah Gonzalez | September 29, 2025 | 10:20am

Video Games News Electronic Arts

EA Is Being Bought by Saudi Arabia’s PIF and Jared Kushner’s Investment Firm

Today, EA, one of the biggest game publishers in the industry, announced that it is being acquired for $55 billion by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner’s investment group Affinity Partners.

It is a total acquisition, meaning that the company will no longer be listed on the public stock market if the deal goes through. According to the press release, “the transaction represents the largest all-cash sponsor take-private investment in history.” The sale is expected to close in Q1 of fiscal year 2027, but before then, it will need to receive both regulatory approval and approval from EA stockholders.

While there have been rumblings about an acquisition since Friday, it’s still seismic news for the game industry. So far this year, EA has the sixth-highest revenue out of any game publisher, behind only NetEase, Nintendo, Microsoft, Tencent, and Sony. The company is known for its predictable yearly sports game releases, like Madden, FC, NHL, and College Football, sprinkled in with a handful of others, like Split Fiction and Battlefield 6 this year.

As for the investors, Saudi Arabia’s PIF continues its push into games. The move is almost certainly part of the country’s continued “games-washing and sport-swashing” efforts, a means to distance itself from its long list of human rights abuses by associating itself with “fun” topics, like Pokémon Go, Fatal Fury, e-sports, WWE, and golf, instead of allegedly murdering journalists.

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The PIF is a direct subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian government and is controlled by the country’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This close association between the PIF and the government’s leadership has led many to assume that certain decisions with these games, like Fatal Fury City of the Wolves’s head-scratching choice to include Cristiano Ronaldo (who is on the Saudi-owned football team Al-Nassr) and DJ Salvatore Ganacci (who has performed several Saudi sports events) as playable characters, were made due to influence from the Saudi government.

As for the other investors, Silver Lake is a California private equity firm that primarily focuses on investment in the tech industry, while Affinity Partners is an investment group owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Affinity Partners has been criticized for its close relationship with the Saudi Arabian government, like how it received $2 billion from the PIF immediately after Kushner finished his role as a senior advisor to Trump’s first presidency—a presidency where Trump vetoed bills that would have banned weapon sales to Saudi Arabia during its war in Yemen. Despite the massive amount of cash it has raised, Affinity Partners was only staffed by 20 people as of 2021, which is certainly a lot less than acquisition co-partner Silver Lake’s half a million, another element that has fueled speculation that the organization is dubious.

While, as previously mentioned, the deal still needs to be approved by regulatory bodies, it’s hard to imagine that Trump’s White House will object, given its close ties with Jared Kushner and the Saudi government (today, the Trump Organization announced that it is launching a Trump Plaza in the Saudi city of Jeddah).