How Jared Kushner and Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban brokered the EA takeover using Kushner's deep Saudi Arabia ties; sources: Kushner's firm will own ~5% of EA
Trump's son-in-law used deep ties in Saudi Arabia to help pull off the largest buyout — Antoine Gara, James Fontanella-Khan …
Context & Ripple Effects
EA's path to a private transaction moved quickly from reported talks around a $50 billion valuation to a $210-per-share acquisition agreement involving Saudi Arabia's PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity. This report explains the relationship-building behind that investor group and identifies Affinity's expected ownership position.
The transaction also became a test case for cross-border deal oversight: the European Commission later approved the acquisition under its subsidy rules, underscoring that the financing structure—not only EA's operations—matters to the deal's path.
First-order effects
- Affinity Partners is positioned to hold roughly 5% of EA, giving Jared Kushner's firm a defined economic stake alongside PIF and Silver Lake.
- Kushner's Saudi relationships and Egon Durban's role at Silver Lake become central to how the consortium assembled the transaction, concentrating deal influence among its sponsors.
Second-order effects
- The buyer group must coordinate governance and incentives among a sovereign investor, a technology-focused private-equity firm and Affinity as EA transitions from public ownership.
- The deal's cross-border sponsorship structure invites closer attention from regulators and counterparties, making clearance and ownership disclosure part of the execution burden for similar large take-privates.
Third-order effects
- If this model is repeated, access to sovereign capital and relationship networks could become a more important differentiator in financing large media and technology buyouts, alongside price and operating plans.
- Regulatory review of state-linked funding may increasingly shape which consortium structures are practical, even where the target's core business raises limited conventional competition concerns.
The trend: Large technology and entertainment take-privates are increasingly being assembled through alliances between private equity and sovereign-backed capital, with political relationships and regulatory scrutiny becoming material deal variables.