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Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is a state-run sovereign wealth fund controlled ultimately by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, managing hundreds of billions of pounds in assets on behalf of the Saudi state. Electronic Arts, best known for franchises such as FIFA-style football games, The Sims and Battlefield, is one of the world's biggest video game publishers. The deal to take EA private, agreed earlier this year, involved the PIF joining forces with the US private equity firm Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, an investment firm run by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former US President Donald Trump.

Sovereign wealth funds like the PIF invest state money in businesses abroad, and the PIF has spent years building stakes in gaming companies including Nintendo, Capcom and Activision Blizzard, alongside full ownership of the studio SNK. This EA deal is far larger than those previous investments, giving the fund a controlling role in one of the industry's biggest publishers rather than just a minority shareholding. Because EA was previously a publicly listed company, its shares are now removed from the stock market and the business answers instead to its new private owners.

The takeover matters because it raises questions about how much influence a foreign government can have over a major entertainment company that reaches hundreds of millions of players worldwide, and because Saudi Arabia's human rights record has led critics to argue that such investments are intended to improve the kingdom's international image, a practice often referred to as "sportswashing". EA has said it expects to keep making creative decisions independently, but the scale of the deal, and the identities of the investors involved, have made it a focal point in wider debates about foreign state investment in Western media and technology firms.