EA’s $55 billion Saudi acquisition closes — three developer layoff rounds logged

Electronic Arts is no longer a public company. The $55 billion transaction that transferred control of one of the world’s most recognizable gaming publishers to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has closed — the largest leveraged buyout in corporate history. PIF holds 93.4% of the acquired entity; Silver Lake Partners accounts for 5.5%; Affinity Partners, the firm run by Jared Kushner, takes the remaining 1.1%.

The transaction’s significance lives in the franchises EA controls. Battlefield, The Sims, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and the EA Sports portfolio represent decades of gaming culture and hundreds of millions of paying subscribers and players. The relevant structural question — will a debt-financed acquisition apply pressure to subscription prices, cancel long-developing titles, or restructure studio networks — is not hypothetical. EA’s conduct during the acquisition period already provides an early answer.

Three rounds of workforce reductions preceded the deal’s close. EA cut customer support, trust and safety, IT, and recruitment teams across its United States operations and its Hyderabad office in India. Earlier, the cuts reached development directly: DICE, Criterion, Ripple Effect, and Motive — the core Battlefield studio chain — all saw reductions, alongside Full Circle, the team building the long-awaited Skate relaunch. That sequence matters. The layoffs arrived before PIF took ownership, indicating the restructuring terms were baked into the acquisition logic, not imposed after the fact.

What a $55 billion leveraged buyout buys most reliably is debt. EA generated approximately $7.9 billion in revenue in its last full fiscal year — substantial, but modest relative to the cash-flow requirements on a transaction of this scale, particularly given margins that have compressed as the industry shifted toward live-service and subscription models. Private equity’s track record in creative businesses is specific: it prioritizes franchises capable of generating predictable recurring revenue and applies pressure on expensive, long-cycle bets on new intellectual property. Dragon Age and Mass Effect were exactly those bets. Both franchises now carry an uncertain production schedule under new ownership.

Two objections raised during the regulatory process remain unresolved. A group of U.S. senators flagged national security concerns about a major American entertainment company with broad government exposure passing to a Saudi sovereign fund. The European Commission, whose competition clearance was essential to closing the deal, found no grounds for intervention on those terms. Gaming communities separately raised the question of The Sims franchise: EA maintained LGBTQ+-inclusive content policies through years of political pressure; Saudi Arabia criminalizes same-sex relationships. Neither party has publicly addressed how that tension will be managed under PIF ownership.

CEO Andrew Wilson will remain in his role, and EA’s headquarters will stay in Redwood City, California. PIF’s entertainment portfolio — which spans stakes in golf tours, esports organizations, music streaming platforms, and professional wrestling — does not routinely install Riyadh-directed management in acquired assets. The operational independence Wilson has been promised is credible; the financial independence EA had as a publicly listed company is not. The first concrete signal of how PIF intends to run the business will arrive with the holiday gaming calendar, when Battlefield and EA Sports titles begin their fall release cycle as private-company products for the first time.

Tags: Saudi Arabia, EA Sports, Electronic Arts, leveraged buyout, Public Investment Fund