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 officially completed, taking the video game giant private after months of regulatory review. 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. The takeover matters because it hands substantial control of one of the world's largest games publishers to Gulf state capital and a figure closely tied to US political power, while raising fresh questions about job security for EA's workforce.
The deal, first announced last September, 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 annual interest payments of around $1.8bn. Despite EA remaining highly profitable, executives have already begun rolling out generative AI tools of unproven value, and observers believe layoffs, cost-cutting and further monetisation are likely as the company works to service its new debt burden.
- EA's $55bn private takeover by Silver Lake, Kushner's firm and Saudi PIF has completed.
- Bloomberg reports EA has told debt investors it will make deep cost cuts.
- Deal saddles EA with $18bn debt and $1.8bn annual interest, fuelling layoff fears.
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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”.