On September 29, 2025, the business world was rocked by two major developments: the confirmation of a landmark buyout for video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) and new revelations about the profit-sharing structure of TikTok’s U.S. operations. Both stories, which intertwine the interests of global investors, private equity titans, and government regulators, offer a glimpse into the evolving landscape of tech and entertainment—where money, influence, and international politics collide.
First, let’s dive into the blockbuster Electronic Arts deal. According to the Associated Press, EA—famed for best-selling franchises like Madden NFL, Battlefield, and The Sims—is being acquired for $52.5 billion in what may become the largest private-equity buyout in history. The acquisition, valued at about $55 billion when including debt, is spearheaded by Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (PIF), and Affinity Partners. The latter is led by Jared Kushner, son-in-law to former President Donald Trump.
EA shareholders will receive $210 per share, a price that sent the company’s stock soaring—up nearly 5% on the day of the announcement, following a 15% jump the previous Friday as takeover rumors swirled. If the deal closes as anticipated in the first quarter of 2027, it will eclipse the previous record set by the $32 billion TXU buyout in 2007 and draw the curtain on EA’s 36-year run as a publicly traded company. EA’s headquarters will remain in Redwood City, California, and CEO Andrew Wilson, who has led the company since 2013, will stay at the helm.
The Saudi PIF’s involvement is hardly a surprise to industry watchers. Andrew Marok of Raymond James told the Associated Press, “The Saudi PIF has been a very active player in the video gaming market since 2022, taking minority stakes in most scaled public video gaming publishers, and also outright purchases of companies like ESL, FACEIT, and Scopely. The PIF has made its intentions to scale its gaming arm, Savvy Gaming Group, clear, and the EA deal would represent the biggest such move to date by some distance.” Indeed, PIF was already EA’s largest insider stakeholder, with a 9.9% stake that will roll over into the new private entity. The fund is also a minority investor in Nintendo, further cementing its influence across the global gaming sector.
Jared Kushner, CEO of Affinity Partners, expressed his enthusiasm in a statement: “Electronic Arts is an extraordinary company with a world-class management team and a bold vision for the future. I’ve admired their ability to create iconic, lasting experiences, and as someone who grew up playing their games—and now enjoys them with his kids—I couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”
The buyout comes at a time when EA’s annual revenues have plateaued, hovering between $7.4 billion and $7.6 billion over the past three fiscal years. Meanwhile, competitors like Activision Blizzard have been snapped up by tech giants—Microsoft acquired Activision for nearly $69 billion in 2023—and mobile gaming upstarts such as Epic Games are intensifying the competitive pressure. Going private, as history has shown with companies like Dell, can allow a firm to retool away from the relentless quarterly scrutiny of Wall Street. Still, such transitions often come with cost-cutting and layoffs. EA, which shed about 5% of its workforce in 2024 and several hundred more employees in May 2025, ended March with 14,500 staff. There’s been no official word yet on further cuts, but the industry will be watching closely.
This isn’t Silver Lake’s first rodeo in the tech world, either. The firm led the $1.9 billion buyout of Skype in 2009 and a $24.9 billion buyout of Dell in 2013. After Dell restructured privately, it returned to the public markets in 2018. More recently, Silver Lake has joined a joint venture led by Oracle to take over U.S. oversight of TikTok’s social video platform, though the details of that arrangement remain murky.
Which brings us to the second major story of the day: the evolving TikTok saga. The Financial Times reported that the deal hammered out between Washington and Beijing will grant ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, roughly 50% of the app’s American profits—even though U.S. shareholders will own the majority of the business. Five sources briefed on the negotiations explained that the White House’s $14 billion valuation pertains to a new joint venture between ByteDance and new investors, which will operate TikTok’s U.S. arm. But crucially, additional streams of U.S.-related income will still flow back to ByteDance.
“It’s a perfect deal, control belongs to US capital, [but a] majority of profit goes back to ByteDance,” said one investor in ByteDance, as quoted by the Financial Times. This arrangement helps explain the relatively modest valuation assigned to TikTok’s American business—despite its enormous popularity and commercial clout. ByteDance’s international revenues totaled $40 billion out of $155 billion in overall sales for 2024, with the U.S. TikTok operation delivering the largest slice of its overseas business.
The TikTok joint venture is, in some ways, emblematic of the broader tensions and compromises shaping today’s tech landscape. On one hand, U.S. regulators and politicians have pushed for greater domestic control over platforms that wield outsize influence on American culture and data. On the other, economic realities and the global reach of companies like ByteDance mean that profit-sharing and cross-border ownership remain stubbornly complex. The new deal, with its split of profits and control, is a reflection of that uneasy balance.
Interestingly, Silver Lake’s involvement in both the EA buyout and the TikTok joint venture underscores the interconnectedness of today’s tech and media empires. Private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, and politically connected investors are increasingly the power brokers behind the scenes, shaping not just who owns what, but how profits and influence are distributed around the globe.
As for what comes next, both deals are still subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals. EA’s buyout, in particular, must win the backing of investors who have watched the company grow from its humble beginnings—when its shares debuted at a split-adjusted 52 cents per share—to a global powerhouse. The TikTok arrangement, meanwhile, will likely continue to draw scrutiny from lawmakers concerned about data privacy, national security, and the flow of profits overseas.
For now, one thing is clear: the lines between entertainment, technology, and geopolitics are blurrier than ever. Whether these deals ultimately benefit consumers, employees, or shareholders remains to be seen, but their sheer scale and ambition are already reshaping the industry’s future.
