Electronic Arts stopped being a public company on August 4. EA's own announcement confirms the acquisition by PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners closed that day, that shareholders received $210 in cash per share, and that the stock has been delisted from NASDAQ. The deal was agreed on September 29, 2025 and approved by stockholders on December 22, 2025.
What the announcement does not mention is how the purchase was funded, and that is the part determining what happens to the people who make the games.
The interest bill is roughly the size of annual profit
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has reported that around $18 billion of debt was funded at close, putting EA on the hook for something near $1.8 billion a year in interest. Against that, he puts EA's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation at roughly $1.5 billion — enough to service the payments, with nothing spare.
That is the arithmetic that produces the next number. According to the same reporting, EA has told debt investors it will cut $700 million in annual costs, of which $170 million is described as organisational efficiencies. In a company whose largest recurring expense is salaries, that phrase has one common meaning.
EA has not announced any of this itself
There is no EA statement confirming a $700 million target, no announced restructuring and no headcount figure. The company's public position, given when the deal was announced last year, was that there would be no immediate changes to anyone's job, team or daily work as a result of the transaction — without defining immediate.
Andrew Wilson, who remains Chairman and CEO, said on closing that EA enters the next chapter from a position of strength and will invest boldly. Both things can be true at once: the consortium can intend long-term investment and still require several hundred million dollars of annual cost to disappear first.
AI is already named as part of the answer
Egon Durban, CEO of Silver Lake, specifically cited what AI can do for game development and player experience in EA's own closing statement. Wilson said in April that around 85% of EA's quality assurance work now uses AI, while maintaining that the company employs more QA staff than ever because humans are needed to interpret the output.
Those two claims are compatible today and become harder to hold together under a $700 million cost mandate. QA is where automation lands first and where contract staff are concentrated.
Who now owns The Sims and Battlefield
PIF is Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and had been an EA shareholder for more than five years before the buyout. Affinity Partners is run by Jared Kushner. Silver Lake is a technology-focused private equity firm. Goldman Sachs advised EA; Kirkland & Ellis acted for the consortium.
The concrete thing to watch is not a press release. It is whether EA's studios ship on their announced dates over the next four quarters, because interest payments this size do not wait for a game to be ready.
