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EA Buyout Closes: Saudi Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners Acquire the Publisher

EA’s buyout closed in August 2026. The buyers are Saudi Arabia’s PIF, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners; stockholders are to receive $210 per share.
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Electronic Arts’ buyout is complete. EA announced on August 4, 2026, that a consortium comprising Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners had acquired the company. EA stockholders are to receive $210 in cash per share, and EA said its common stock had ceased trading and would be delisted from Nasdaq.

Who bought EA, and what is Jared Kushner’s role?

EA was acquired by a three-member investor consortium: PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. PIF is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Affinity Partners is a Miami-based investment firm founded in 2021 by Jared Kushner, who serves as its CEO. Kushner’s firm is one of the buyers; he is not the sole purchaser of EA.

EA’s closing announcement quoted PIF Deputy Governor and Head of International Investments Turqi Alnowaiser describing entertainment and sports as strategic areas for the fund. That statement explains PIF’s stated interest, but the transaction itself does not establish how the new owners will direct EA’s games or business.

Is EA being sold, or has the buyout already happened?

The agreement was announced on September 29, 2025, and the acquisition closed on August 4, 2026, according to EA. The distinction matters: the September announcement described a planned transaction, while EA’s August announcement reported that it had been completed. EA also said its common stock had ceased trading and would be delisted from Nasdaq.

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How much did the buyers pay?

Two figures describe different parts of the deal. The approximately $55 billion figure was the transaction’s enterprise value in the September 2025 announcement. The $210 figure is the cash consideration per share for EA stockholders, as stated in both the agreement announcement and the closing announcement.

In its September 2025 announcement, EA said $210 per share represented a 25% premium to the company’s unaffected closing price of $168.32 on September 25, 2025—the last fully unaffected trading day it identified. EA also said the offer exceeded its then-unaffected all-time closing high of $179.01 on August 14, 2025. These are comparisons to historical prices at the time of the announcement, not comparisons with a current trading price.

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How was the transaction financed?

EA’s announced financing plan combined approximately $36 billion in equity investment, including PIF’s rollover of its existing 9.9% stake, with $20 billion in debt financing committed by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. The September 2025 announcement said $18 billion of that debt was expected to be funded at closing and that each investor intended to fund its equity component entirely from capital under its control.

Those figures describe the announced transaction financing. By themselves, they do not show what the debt will mean for EA’s staffing, release schedule or future games.

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Why did the buyout draw political and industry attention?

U.S. senators raised national-security questions

On October 14, 2025, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, then chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), urging scrutiny of the deal. Their letter raised concerns about possible access to users’ personal information, EA’s AI development, and influence over product design and direction. Those were the lawmakers’ concerns and requests for scrutiny; the letter is not evidence that data was accessed or misused, nor a final government finding.

Analysts disagreed about the business consequences

The Associated Press reported that some analysts saw the possibility of greater flexibility for EA as a private company, while others pointed to the deal’s $20 billion in debt financing as a potential source of pressure to cut costs. These were competing assessments, not established outcomes. The available announcements and reporting do not establish how the change in ownership will affect EA’s employees, operations, games or data practices.

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What happens to EA’s games and players?

EA Chairman and CEO Andrew Wilson said at closing that the company and its new owners would “invest boldly, accelerate innovation, and build the next generation of games and experiences.” That is a forward-looking statement, not proof of a particular product, investment, price or release plan. The acquisition announcement does not itself specify what will change for players, and the transaction’s effects on game quality, consumer prices and development remain unestablished.

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