EA has now officially gone private, with its $55 billion acquisition by Saudi Arabia's Private Investment Fund, Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake now closed. And, after all that, there's reportedly already the threat of mass layoffs looming.
Plans for the big buyout were first outlined last year, at which point it was revealed that the transaction would be partly funded by EA taking on a whopping $20 billion in debt – "$18 billion of which is expected to be funded at close." The acquisition plans, in general, already had some employees and studio veterans concerned about potential layoffs to follow – after all, we saw that same thing happen with Activision Blizzard after its buyout by Microsoft – and, according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, that's now looking even more likely.
