EA workforce braces for cuts as Kushner-linked PIF buyout closes
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Electronic Arts' $55bn takeover by a consortium of Silver Lake, Affinity Partners (led by Jared Kushner) and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has completed, taking the video game giant private after months of regulatory review. In a joint statement, EA chief executive Andrew Wilson and the consortium's leaders framed the deal as a springboard for investment and innovation, but the takeover has drawn criticism over Kushner's ties to US political power and Saudi Arabia's human rights record, and it hands substantial control of one of the world's largest games publishers to Gulf state capital. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, EA has told debt investors it plans significant cost cuts, fuelling expectations of mass layoffs as the newly private company grapples with the deal's heavy debt load.
First announced last September, the deal saw EA delisted from the NASDAQ, with shareholders, including staff, paid $210 per share once the transaction closed. It is structured as a record-breaking leveraged buyout, with EA taking on $18bn of debt and facing roughly $1.8bn in annual interest payments. Despite EA's existing profitability, executives are expected to pursue major changes, including generative AI adoption, cost-cutting and further monetisation, to manage the new debt burden.
- EA's $55bn buyout by Silver Lake, Kushner's Affinity Partners and Saudi PIF has closed.
- Deal loaded EA with $18bn debt, $1.8bn yearly interest payments.
- Mass layoffs expected as EA seeks cost cuts to service new debt.
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Electronic Arts, the company behind games such as FIFA, The Sims and Battlefield, has been bought out and taken off the stock market in a deal worth $55bn, one of the largest of its kind ever seen. The buyers are a group made up of the investment firm Silver Lake, Affinity Partners (run by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump), and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, its sovereign wealth fund. Because the deal is "leveraged", EA itself has taken on huge amounts of debt to help pay for its own purchase, rather than the buyers funding it outright.
The buyout matters because it hands significant influence over one of the world's biggest video game publishers to Gulf state money and a figure with close ties to US political power, at a company that employs thousands of people worldwide. It also means EA no longer has to answer to public shareholders or stock market rules, giving its new owners more freedom to restructure the business as they see fit, including through job cuts, in order to manage the debt taken on to fund the deal.
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Originally published by Eurogamer as ““Mass layoffs” expected at EA, as $55bn buyout by Saudi Arabia’s PIF and Donald Trump’s son-in-law officially goes through”.