Saudi capital, private equity muscle and a well‑connected fixer converge in a $55 billion bid to take Electronic Arts private

On Monday, September 29, 2025, the board of Electronic Arts approved a proposal to take the video‑game publisher private in a deal valued at roughly $55 billion, the largest leveraged buyout ever attempted on Wall Street. The investor group is led by private‑equity firm Silver Lake in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners, the Miami‑based firm founded by Jared Kushner, the son‑in‑law of Donald Trump. The consortium offered $210 per share—about a 25% premium to EA’s closing price last week—and plans to finance the transaction with a mix of equity and more than $20 billion of debt, people familiar with the terms said. If completed, EA would exit public markets after 36 years of trading.

The headline number sent shockwaves through tech and media: it would eclipse the 2007 buyout of TXU as the biggest LBO on record. But inside boardrooms and diplomatic circles, attention quickly fixed on what enabled such a vast pool of capital to assemble so quickly: Saudi money, and the unique role played by Kushner, whose firm has been backed by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund and who has cultivated deep relationships with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Gulf financiers.

Silver Lake, long an aggressive investor in digital entertainment, had been circling EA for months amid a bumpy year for games. Revenue growth across the industry slowed, studios cut headcount, and several marquee titles slipped. Yet EA’s evergreen franchises—the Madden NFL series, EA Sports FC and Battlefield—continued to throw off reliable cash. What Silver Lake lacked was a partner willing to anchor a colossal equity check and stomach cyclical volatility in exchange for long‑term strategic influence. The PIF, which has poured tens of billions into global gaming through its Savvy Gaming Group and stakes in publishers and esports organizers, fit that brief.

Affinity Partners’ presence was the hinge. According to people involved in the negotiations, Kushner and his team helped bridge early gaps between Silver Lake’s financial engineering and the PIF’s strategic aims, including commitments around studio expansion, technology partnerships in the Gulf, and an investment pipeline for regional talent. They also helped corral bank financing—JPMorgan is leading a debt package expected to total around $20 billion—by assuring lenders that the equity would be fully subscribed and that cash flows from EA’s sports franchises could support the leverage under conservative cases.

Kushner’s ties to Saudi Arabia have been under scrutiny since Affinity launched in 2021 with a $2 billion cornerstone commitment from the PIF, an investment that several outside advisers to the fund reportedly questioned at the time. Congressional Democrats have probed whether his post‑White House business dealings created conflicts of interest. Kushner has denied any wrongdoing and says Affinity complies with all ethics rules and U.S. laws. In the EA deal, Affinity executives cast themselves as translators between distinct investor cultures: traditional U.S. private equity focused on IRR and exit windows, and a sovereign investor intent on long‑horizon influence in a sector the kingdom sees as both economic engine and soft power.

Negotiations accelerated over the summer. People familiar with the process say EA’s board sought price certainty and assurances that the studio’s creative autonomy would be protected. Andrew Wilson, EA’s chief executive, is expected to remain in place, and the company’s headquarters would stay in Redwood City, California. The buyers also discussed a multi‑year capital plan to modernize EA’s in‑house engines, invest in cloud infrastructure, and expand mobile sports titles in emerging markets, according to a person briefed on the term sheet. Those commitments were crucial to persuading skeptics that private ownership would not simply be an exercise in financial engineering.

Politically, the deal lands in fraught territory. Any large U.S. media or technology buyout with major foreign participation invites regulatory attention; this one features Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund at a moment when Washington’s posture toward Riyadh swings between pragmatic engagement and human‑rights pressure. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is expected to review the transaction. While gaming is not a critical‑infrastructure asset, the prominence of sports licenses and vast user data sets may draw questions about data security, content moderation and influence over competitive leagues.

Bankers involved nevertheless argue that the PIF is already a public‑market investor in U.S. games and that taking EA private would not confer operational control to the sovereign fund. Silver Lake, they note, would serve as lead sponsor; board composition and governance rights are being structured to assuage concerns about day‑to‑day influence. The buyers point to prior approvals of Gulf‑backed investments in sports, entertainment and tech as precedents. Yet critics say the sheer scale of this deal—and the political notoriety around Kushner—make it qualitatively different, and therefore likely to face a higher bar.

Strategically, the logic is straightforward. Under private ownership, EA can navigate a console transition, swing for bigger live‑service bets and weather title delays without the quarter‑to‑quarter glare of public markets. The sponsors believe they can expand adjusted EBITDA through tighter portfolio management, subscription bundles and a steadier cadence of sports releases. The Saudi angle adds another layer: the kingdom has earmarked gaming as a pillar of its diversification plan, and ownership in a top‑tier Western publisher gives it unmatched visibility into development pipelines and global esports ecosystems.

What changed in September was a convergence of timing. With rates stabilizing and credit markets reopening, banks were again willing to underwrite big‑ticket LBO debt—albeit with covenants that would have looked conservative a decade ago. Meanwhile, EA’s stock lagged peers after mixed guidance, making a premium bid more persuasive. Affinity, whose assets have swelled on Gulf commitments, could signal to both sides that Saudi capital was ready to move quickly if governance and transparency guardrails were secured. One person involved in the talks described Kushner’s role as “transactional diplomacy”—not a kingmaker, but a facilitator with access and a mandate to close.

None of that insulates the consortium from risk. Headline leverage near five turns of EBITDA will test EA’s ability to keep annualized bookings growth on track, especially if another AAA title slips. Sports licensing is a fortress but not a moat; competitors are aggressively courting leagues and players, and regulatory pressures around loot boxes and monetization persist in Europe and beyond. Most of all, the deal’s political optics are volatile. An extended CFIUS review or a change in Washington’s temperature toward Riyadh could force concessions on governance or data localization that dent returns.

For now, the transaction heads into a months‑long slog of shareholder votes, financing commitments and multi‑agency review. If it closes on the current timetable—as early as the first quarter of EA’s fiscal 2027—Wall Street will log a new record and the global games industry will have a new power center shaped in equal parts by private equity math and geopolitical ambition. The era of sovereign‑scaled entertainment investing has arrived. In the middle of it is Jared Kushner, whose relationships in the Gulf transformed a bold idea into a binding agreement—and whose influence will now be measured not only in rolodexes and headlines, but in ship dates, studio headcounts and the staying power of EA’s most durable franchises.