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<\/p>\n
Who is purchasing EA?<\/h2>\n
The group of buyers who are purchasing Electronic Arts include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- PIF<\/strong> – Public Investment Fund, which is the is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia<\/li>\n
- Silver Lake<\/strong> – a large investment firm which has invested in the game engine Unity, in Airbnb, in Skype before it was sold back to Microsoft, and in Twitter before it was sold to X, among many other large investments<\/li>\n
- Affinity Partners<\/strong> – formed and owned by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Where is the money to buy EA coming from?<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nOf the $55 billion purchase price, these investors are borrowing $20 billion from the bank to help pay for the purchase. The rest will come from their own funds, including about 10% stocks that Saudi Arabia’s PIF already owned. That Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund already had such as large investment into EA’s stocks was not widely known until the acquisition deal was disclosed.<\/p>\n
Who is making money from this sale?<\/h2>\n
For anyone who owns EA stock, including the company\u2019s directors, officers, other senior staff, investment firms such as Vanguard and BlackRock, and individual shareholders, each share will be purchased for $210 (up from the previous price of about $172). This acquisition will buy out all outstanding shares and take the company private, meaning EA will no longer be publicly traded on the stock market.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd89fdc94a8.png\")
<\/p>\nThe shareholders will have to vote on this acquisition, but in financial terms, it seems to be a big win for anyone who had previously invested in the company.<\/p>\n
For example Andrew Wilson, the Chairman CEO of Electronic Arts, recently sold off<\/a> 5,000 of his stocks on September 22, a few days before the news broke, at about $173 each, earning him $865,000. At the new price, with the announcement of the acquisition, he would have gotten over $1 million.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nWhile we don’t know exactly how many stocks each “insider” individual has, here is one example. Laura Miele<\/a>, President of EA Entertainment & Central Development, had 55,592 stocks as of early September<\/a> 2025. These should be worth well over $11 million after the deal is completed.<\/p>\n
Will the deal go through?<\/h2>\n
The deal also has to pass all required regulatory approvals, but due to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, being the owner of the one of the investment firms, it seems unlikely that any hurdles will stop the acquisition with the current administration, especially as the Trump Organization very recently signed a deal<\/a> to build a new commercial and housing development valued at over $1 billion in Saudi Arabia. This deal doesn’t involve the acquisition of one gaming company by another, like Microsoft buying Blizzard, so there also shouldn’t be any anti-compete concerns like other big gaming deals that have happened recently.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nAs for cultural or national security, this case may be similar<\/a> to the recent executive orders related to Tiktok. U.S. lawmakers and regulators argued that TikTok\u2019s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, might be compelled by Chinese laws to share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, or that the algorithm might be manipulated under foreign influence, posing a risk to privacy, data protection, and possibly even propaganda or influence campaigns.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd8f43b51c8.png\")
<\/p>\nA few days before the EA announcement, President Donald Trump signed an executive order<\/a> approving a proposed deal, a new joint-venture company will oversee TikTok’s U.S. business while ByteDance holds less than 20% of the stock – much like a joint venture is purchasing EA. Enterprise tech giant Oracle, Silver Lake and the United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi-based MGX investment fund will be the main investors in TikTok\u2019s U.S. business, controlling a roughly 45% stake in the entity. This recent deal, signed by the President himself, points towards the current administration’s close financial and political ties to the middle east.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd8f163ec5d.png\")
<\/p>\nHow will these investors make money from EA?<\/h2>\n
While some of the initial purchase is coming from the investment companies’ own funds, they are also taking out a $20 billion loan to purchase EA, which will need to be paid back as quickly as possible, in order to reduce the interest paid on the loan. This is called a leveraged buyout, and can sometimes lead to ruin for the original purchased company, if the purchaser does not have a solid plan and luck on their side.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nIn a standard business deal, the buyer assumes that purchasing a company will make them more money than the cost of acquiring it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd904d05fca.png\")
<\/p>\nSometimes this is because they are willing to invest long-term and expect to earn more over time. Other times, it is because they believe the original company is \u2018leaving money on the table\u2019\u2014for example, by being inefficient with their technology, staff, or distribution.<\/p>\n
It could also be due to less tangible factors, such as the company\u2019s brand or its goodwill with customers.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd8fe98303d.png\")
<\/p>\nThe buyer also might believe that by changing how the company is run, they can generate more profit than the company could on its own.<\/p>\n
Is the main goal of the purchase to make money directly from EA?<\/h2>\n
Not all deals are so cut and dry – sometimes purchases are made for long-term political or strategic gains that aren’t directly financial, sometimes even working at a loss for a long time, but giving the buyer the ability to earn prestige or goodwill on the world stage.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd90b2beead.png\")
<\/p>\nA great example of this is the Abu Dhabi royal family buying the Manchester City Football Club<\/a> (England soccer team) back in 2008. Although the club was not exactly doing great financially or when it came to winning games, The Abu Dhabi royal family purchased the club, and immediately started putting out big bids<\/a> for high-profile players, but even with this huge investment, they still finished tenth. Three years later they reached the FA Cup finals, their first major final in over 30 years, and leading to more success, fame and wins down the road.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nOver time, the club, purchased by the royal family, has spent<\/a> over \u20ac2.6 billion since the original purchase, and in the first year, they only made 100 million in revenue. Since then, Manchester has become a household name for soccer fans – 694 million people watched<\/a> the competition last season, and it’s impossible to talk about Manchester without talking about its acquisition and it spending, all directly tied to Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n
In 2014, these cultural ties to the city allowed them to broker a deal<\/a> with the city of Manchester as the Abu Dhabi United Group, and in addition to the club, have now invested over $1 billion in property and higher education in Manchester – a deal that seems unlikely to have happened if they hadn’t first invested in Manchester’s beloved team at a high loss, nor would they have received the personal prestige of owning and saving such a beloved team.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nWhile there’s no royal family directly purchasing EA, there are two high profile geopolitical groups attached to the purchase, in addition to Silver Lake, who has its hands in many, many investments across the globe, many of which have shaped parts of our culture, like Unity, Airbnb, and Twitter.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd9081c8d54.png\")
<\/p>\nSaudi Arabia<\/h3>\n
The first group is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is most well known for its oil, and has the largest oil reserves in the world, but they are aware their oil reserves will eventually run out, and have been working on a plan called Vision 2030<\/a>, to diversify its economy. Purchasing EA is directly in line with their goals, one of which is “Grow the Public Investment Fund’s assets and role as a growth engine” and “develop the digital economy”.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd95459fa06.png\")
<\/p>\nSaudi government funds and hosted the first and second Esports World Cup<\/a>. The tournament’s official partners included Sony and Amazon, and games played at the tournament included Fortnite, Call of Duty, and League of Legends. The event is part of Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030” economic diversification strategy<\/a>, which has seen billions invested in various sports events. While there was a 70 million dollar prize pool for the 2025 Esports World Cup, it is unlikely that the event earned that much in sponsorships and ticket sales.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd92d70ba5e.png\")
<\/p>\nThis isn’t even the first time Saudi Arabia has purchased gaming companies. Savvy Games Group, founded by the Public Investment Fund, is a video game investment, development, publishing and Esports company based in Saudi Arabia, which now owns Monopoly Go (popular moneitzed mobile game) and Pokemon Go. Saudi Arabia also invests in ownership of stocks, and while it fluctuates, PIF owned around 8.5% of Nintendo last year. They have also invested<\/a> in Take-Two, (the owner of Rockstar \/ GTA and Zynga mobile gaming), Activision Blizzard (WoW, Diablo, Overwatch), Capcom (Monster Hunter and Resident Evil).<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nRemember how the Abu Dhabi royal family bought that soccer club back in 2008? Saudi Arabia’s PIF bought<\/a> the Newcastle United Football Club in 2021 for over \u00a3300 million. This purchase, and their other similar investments, are part of a broader pattern of investing<\/a> in prominent sports entities (both the kind with your feet and esports) to bolster the kingdom’s international profile. Saudia Arabia has become a hub for elite boxing, and the 2034 FIFA World Cup is set to take place there too.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd922c69e4d.png\")
<\/p>\nSaudi Arabia has also branched out into growing their cultural reach beyond just sports, using their strong financial position to lure in companies, leagues and individuals who may not have otherwise have wanted to work with the country due to their previous involvements with various human rights issues, Saudi links to the hijackers during the 9\/11 attacks, and the more recent assassination<\/a> of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.<\/p>\n
After 9\/11, public relations firms helped salvage Saudi Arabia’s image, and these types of cultural sponsorships through sports<\/a>, esports, and even things like comedy specials helped whitewash the country and monarchal government actions, making the country more desirable to work with for the average person.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia also flexed<\/a> their financial influence during the recent Riyadh Comedy Festival, where they invited famous comedians to perform, including Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Pete Davidson, Andrew Schulz, Jo Koy, Bill Burr, Jessica Kirson, Jimmy Carr and Louis C.K. Tim Dillon on his podcast stated \u201cSo what, they have slaves?\u201d and that he was offered $375,000, and stated<\/a> \u201cThey\u2019re paying me enough money to look the other way.\u201d Tim was later fired<\/a> from the festival after his commentary\/jokes about slavery in Saudi Arabia. Allegedly other comedy stars were offered even more, and while $375,000 might be pocket change for big celebrities, the average annual average salary in the U.S. is $66,622, making the offer 5x the average US salary for a week of festival work, at what was being billed as the largest festival of its kind globally.<\/p>\n
This financial offer would have to be high enough and well-worded enough to assuage any fears the comedians might have, especially as earlier in the summer, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced Turki al-Jasser\u2019s execution<\/a>, a blogger\/journalist who covered sensitive topics such as women’s rights and the Palestinian cause. The Saudi authorities also found him to be the anonymous author behind a Twitter account linking members of the Saudi royal family to alleged acts of corruption and human rights abuses. His execution came after 7 years of imprisonment.<\/p>\n
While none of the comedians offered a place in the festival were journalists who wrote exposes on the crimes of the royal family, some of them likely had in the past made satirical jokes about countries in the middle east, their cultural practices, and their human rights abuses. The offer to come perform at the festival did come with a list of restrictions<\/a> of what the guests could talk about when it came to the royal family and its legal system – and the recent execution underscored these outlines.<\/p>\n
Having these big-name celebrities attending such a public festival improves public perception of Saudi Arabia, showing that it is a ‘safe’ country and entity to work with and do business with, and the same goes for their investments in Sports and Esports, with the latter sometimes being called “sportwashing<\/a>“, the act of using sports to improve their reputation.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nSaudi Arabia also has in its Vision 2030 plan to generate 1.6 million tourism-related jobs by 2030, so improving its reputation is an important part of the Vision 2030 overall plan – and purchasing EA could be a part of this over-arching goal, in addition to being a more directly financial investment.<\/p>\n
Affinity Partners<\/h3>\n
Affinity Partners is the second group in the deal that may want to invest in EA for reasons beyond a direct investment in the gaming company’s financial future.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nAffinity Partners was formed by and is owned by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law (married to Ivanka), who also served as a senior advisor during Trump’s first presidency. The firm has a focus on investing in American and Israeli companies, and its sources of funding are overwhelmingly from the Saudi Arabian government. The largest investor by some margin is the Saudi government’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund… which is the same PIF group spoken about earlier. This firm is quite smaller, with its head Jared Kushner at the helm, and a team of 30+ professionals manging $5.4 billion total, with about 2 billion from PIF. So far, the firm has returned no profits to its investors, but seems to have invested in various technology and property based projects, with the EA deal being its biggest and most talked about deal.<\/p>\n
“The House Oversight Committee said on June 2, 2022, that it had opened an investigation into whether Kushner had traded on his government position to get the deal. As of 2024, the fund had made $157 million in management fees (including $87 million from the Saudi government alone) since 2021. The fund [is? was?] under Senate investigation for possible foreign influence buying ahead of the 2024 election after a New York Times report suggested that Kushner used contacts he made from his role in Trump’s White House. According to Reuters, Kushner has also been in multiple discussions on U.S.\u2013Saudi diplomacy since Trump left office, which in turn prompted questions as to whether and how his financial ties would influence U.S. foreign policy under a second Trump presidency.” (Wikipedia<\/a> quote)<\/em><\/p>\n
Data Collection – Either adapt or die<\/h3>\n
In addition to Affinity Partners and the Trump family’s close ties to Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia’s investments, the changing political landscape of the United States could potentially be connected to the purchase. Social media and online presence has become an incredibly important part of poltical efforts in recent elections, both presidential and smaller elections. A New York City representative recently spoke<\/a> about his experience with the vigorous need to present online in ways that didn’t even exist a decade ago.<\/p>\n
“You have to master what I call ‘the three threes.'” A 30-second vertical video, a three-minute cable news hit, and a three-hour filmed podcast interview.<\/p>\n
These three very different types of formats are currently some of the strongest ways to sway hearts and minds in the United States – but who knows what formats might be used in the future, either directly or indirectly, to reach voters?<\/p>\n
He went on to say, “You get good at it or you become extinct. I mean, that’s life, right? That’s evolution. Either adapt or die.”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd8a6872d7b.png\")
<\/p>\nAcquiring EA comes with a lot of indirect power, especially when it comes to shaping a narrative for future games, how they are presented, and who is promoted playing them. While it seems unlikely we’ll see anything as direct as “the next Battlefield game to have a main story plot be that Saudi Arabia is coming to the rescue of the United States and they need to band together against a common foe”<\/em> as one Redit user commented tongue-in-cheek, its unclear what changes to the various franchises might come in the future.<\/p>\n
Pok\u00e9mon Go – Business As Usual<\/h3>\n
Historically, both Silver Lake and PIF have focused on making financially-minded changes (with Affinity Partner’s objectives yet to be seen). After PIF purchased<\/a> Pok\u00e9mon Go, director Michael Steranka said<\/a>, “I would say the most remarkable thing about this transition so far is how uninterrupted it’s been,” he adds. “It’s very much been business as usual.”<\/p>\n
While it may be business as usual for developers and players, more may be going on behind the scenes. Pok\u00e9mon Go’s most interesting features includes its ability to detect where the user is, and use augmented reality to display digital Pok\u00e9mon on top of what the user sees through the phone’s camera, as if the Pok\u00e9mon was really there to catch, and the novel aspect of competing with players nearby and travelling to different locations in real life to catch different Pok\u00e9mon had players out in droves exploring the world around them. This exploration lead to an immense amount of data<\/a> being fed into the game’s databases.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd969f0b5fe.png\")
<\/p>\nLate last year, Niantic announced that it was using Pok\u00e9mon Go to build an artificial intelligence model trained on more than 30 billion images collected from its apps, an AI-based system designed to improve AI understanding of the physical world, much like Google CAPTCHAS could help AI detect stoplights and crosswalks after users selected them when trying to log in to various sites. While most of the projects<\/a> Niantic’s Spatial department have worked on seem pretty cool, like other video games and even models to enhance U.S. Coast Guard training, who knows what this geospatial database of many cities, created by the players photos from Pokemon Go, could be used for in the future?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd96b49cd4f.png\")
<\/p>\nThis large collection of data is in addition to the more common user data, but much like other online games, goes far beyond just known your email address and your billing address. Most games, including many EA online games, include intensive tracking of user player statistics, play times and locational data – making easy to see where a specific player might live, when they are online at their computer or console, or when they are away. If playing on a portable device, like a phone, tablet, handheld PC or laptop, locational data might also show where you work, travel, or go to school. While not all games have the ability to chat or communicate directly with other players, most chats are logged, and the advanced in AI technology make them easier than ever to crawl through the thousands of conversations happening publicly or privately between players every day. This data, in addition to the more mundane data like your credit card number, should all get passed along with the purchase of the company, directly to the new owners – or at the very least, give them the permission to continue collecting it going forward.<\/p>\n
This type of user data could be incredibly valuable in upcoming elections, especially as the current United States administration employed a unique tactic called Project Alamo<\/a> starting in 2016. Project Alamo is the Republic party’s digital database and ad operation in 2016, using detailed voter data and social media ad targeting to reach different audiences, and that detailed gaming and location data could help segment out those audiences even more specifically. With Jared Kushner<\/a> being the de facto campaign manager for Donald Trump’s 2016 election, access to the data from over approximately 700 million plus accounts<\/a> could be incredibly useful if used for targeted advertising in future elections.<\/p>\n
How might the deal being a leveraged buyout affect EA?<\/h2>\n
With at least two of the three investment companies involved in the deal potentially having larger-scope investment reasons, it is unclear what the exact plans for the investment will be.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd8abdddc5f.png\")
<\/p>\nTraditionally, leveraged buyouts (where the buyer has to borrow money to purchase the company), need to make money back fast<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_68dd97d635d6c.png\")
<\/p>\nto pay off their debt, so they stop accruing interest on their large loan.<\/p>\n
The company itself takes on the debt – in this case, EA in its new form will be saddled with 20 billion dollars it will need to pay back – even if it went bankrupt and couldn’t pay its debt, the investors would still be out the other 36 billion they invested, so it’s in their best interests to make money from the the purchase.<\/p>\n
- Silver Lake<\/strong> – a large investment firm which has invested in the game engine Unity, in Airbnb, in Skype before it was sold back to Microsoft, and in Twitter before it was sold to X, among many other large investments<\/li>\n