On September 29, 2025, Electronic Arts — the storied publisher behind Madden, The Sims, and Battlefield — agreed to be taken private in a historic $55 billion buyout that will reshape the video game industry and mark one of the largest leveraged deals in modern American business history. This is not small potatoes: it’s a seismic transfer of one of our cultural and economic assets into the hands of private investors.
The buyer group is a high-powered consortium that includes Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund the Public Investment Fund, and Affinity Partners, the investment firm founded by Jared Kushner — with shareholders set to receive $210 per share, roughly a 25 percent premium. For those who like facts over fever dreams, this was approved by EA’s board and announced publicly as a cash transaction that values the company at that top-line figure.
The financing behind the deal is heavy but familiar to anyone who watches markets: roughly $36 billion of equity and about $20 billion of debt arranged by JPMorgan, with the deal expected to close in the first quarter of EA’s fiscal 2027 year. EA’s leadership will reportedly stay in place and the company will remain headquartered in Redwood City, at least for now, which should reassure employees who worry about immediate upheaval.
Let’s be clear about what this means from a conservative point of view: private capital and risk-takers are rescuing an American company from the whims of fickle quarterly markets and woke boardrooms. Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners stepping up is a reminder that American entrepreneurs and their partners can still marshal massive resources to invest in growth, innovation, and products Americans love. No amount of pearl-clutching from the coastal elites should blind us to the power of private investment to restore focus and drive results.
That said, patriots should not be naïve about the Saudi role in the consortium. PIF is rolling over an existing roughly 9.9 percent stake and will be a significant player in the new ownership group, raising legitimate questions about strategic influence and cultural sensitivity as a foreign sovereign takes a seat at the table of an influential entertainment company. Lawmakers and regulators should pay attention and demand transparency; national interest matters more than virtue-signaling.
Reports also indicate the new owners plan to lean heavily on artificial intelligence to cut costs, speed development, and wring greater profitability from EA’s massive back catalog — a strategy that could mean leaner teams and fewer headcount protections for production staff. That’s the double-edged sword of private equity: efficiency and returns often come at the expense of bloated bureaucracy, and workers deserve honest answers about what this will mean for jobs and quality.
Americans should welcome investment and revitalization, but not at the cost of blind acceptance. This deal calls for robust oversight, clear guardrails around foreign sovereign influence, and an insistence that new owners protect creative teams and consumer interests. If conservatives champion one thing, it’s the free market — but that market also needs patriots who will watch the deal closely and ensure that American culture and security aren’t traded away for short-term profit.
