In 2018, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, reportedly had journalist Jamal Khashoggi assassinated; his body was cut into pieces with a bone saw. According to The New Yorker, Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, likes playing video games with MBS, and that was even before they went into business together to buy Battlefield maker Electronic Arts in the biggest leveraged buyout in history.
This fun little fact was revealed in a new profile of Kushner’s diplomacy efforts on behalf of his dad. Here’s the full excerpt:
By far the biggest of Kushner’s recent deals was the acquisition of Electronic Arts, a major video-game manufacturer often referred to as E.A. Last August, Kushner, who enjoys playing video games with M.B.S., connected him with Andrew Wilson, the head of the company. The two met in Neom, the futuristic city that M.B.S. is constructing on the Red Sea, and played a round of golf. “Jared brought M.B.S. the deal,” the American with ties to Middle Eastern leaders told me. Not long afterward, M.B.S. assembled a consortium, including Affinity, to acquire E.A. for fifty-five billion dollars—the largest leveraged buyout in history. The deal raised potential regulatory concerns: E.A. handles a huge amount of users’ private data. But the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal interagency panel tasked with reviewing such deals, is largely made up of Trump officials, and the President has final authority. The deal was approved last month.
What do you think they like to play together? Fornite? Rocket League? Among Us? I bet MBS never gets voted out of the airlock.
Just as remarkable is the apparent casualness with which one of the biggest, most consequential deals in gaming history arose. First there was an online party chat. Next thing you know, EA CEO Andrew Wilson is reportedly golfing with an alleged murderer in the middle of a cyberpunk city in the desert that exists mostly in unrealized architectural renders. Bada bing, bada boom, sold for $55 billion in a landmark deal that has saddled one of the biggest gaming publishers in the world with so much debt it will likely face an unprecedented round of chaotic cost-cutting.
Surely there was a lot more planning and forethought that went into it that that. Then again, with Saudi Arabia’s other massive gaming company, Savvy Games Group, left reportedly scratching its head about how the country’s publishing operations will be organized moving forward, maybe not.
