Electronic Arts, the publisher behind Battlefield and Madden NFL, is no longer a publicly traded company. A consortium of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the private-equity firm Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners — the investment firm led by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the US president — has completed its roughly US$55 billion acquisition of the video game giant, EA confirmed on 4 August 2026 (EA News).

Shareholders will receive US$210 in cash for each share of EA common stock they hold, including shares owned by employees (Eurogamer). EA's stock will be delisted from the NASDAQ exchange, ending the company's decades-long run as a public company whose quarterly results moved markets.

The deal was first announced on 29 September 2025 and is reported to be the largest leveraged buyout — a takeover financed largely with borrowed money — in history (Al Jazeera). The consortium agreed to acquire 100% of EA, with PIF rolling over its existing 9.9% stake in the company as part of the transaction (EA Investor Relations).

Regulatory approval came from both the European Commission and the United States Federal Trade Commission, clearing the path for the deal to close (Eurogamer). The review had drawn pushback from EA's unionised workers, who filed a formal petition with regulators urging them to block the acquisition.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson praised the acquisition in a public statement, framing the move to private ownership as a chance to operate outside the pressures of quarterly earnings cycles. Turqi Alnowaiser, PIF's Deputy Governor and Head of International Investments, and Silver Lake CEO Egon Durban also issued statements marking the close. Kushner, who leads Affinity Partners, rounds out the three-party buyer group.

For the millions of players who pick up an EA title each year, the immediate changes are limited. The company's studios, franchises, and release schedules remain intact. What shifts is the corporate structure above them: EA now answers to three private owners rather than public shareholders, and its financial results will no longer appear in quarterly filings.

The deal closes a chapter that began when EA went public in 1989, when the company was a smaller publisher of computer games. It reopens questions about Saudi Arabia's deepening footprint in the games industry — PIF already holds stakes in Nintendo, Take-Two, and other publishers — and about the role of private capital in a sector that has spent the last two years absorbing waves of layoffs, studio closures, and cancelled projects.