Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia team to Buy Electronic Arts for $55 billion

There’s a new reason to avoid Electronic Arts, as the video game maker behind Madden, Battlefield, and The Sims is being acquired for $52.5 billion, $55 billion if debt is included. The purchasers are Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, and Affinity Partners. Affinity Partners is run by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

EA stockholders will receive $210 per share in the buyout. PIF is the largest insider stakeholder in EA and is rolling over its existing 9.9%.

The Saudi PIF has been investing in the video game market since 2022 with minority stakes in numerous companies. They are an investor in Nintendo as an example.

The deal will end EA’s 36-year history as a publicly traded company that began trading with its shares ending its first day of trading at a split-adjusted 52 cents.

The IPO began seven years after it was founded. Andrew Wilson has led the company as CEO since 2013 and will remain in that role.

One of the partners in this, Silver Lake, is also part of the TikTok takeover deal that’s headed by Oracle.

EA’s annual revenue has been about $7.6 billion for the last three fiscal years, with little change.

As the son-in-law to President Trump, Kushner has been a part of numerous horrible policies including the much discussed redevelopment of Gaza by Trump. Under the first term, Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump reported between $172 million and $640 million outside income while they served in unpaid roles un the White House. Affinity Partners received billions of dollars from Middle Eastern investors, including $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s PIF six months after he left the White House.

Saudi Arabia is regularly accused of attempting to wash away the criticism of the regime over human rights abuses, funding of terrorism, and recently the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The PIF invested $1 billion in Embracer Group, the owner of Dark Horse among numerous other geeky things. A rumored larger investment in Embracer fell through.

Source: Graphic Policy