By: Sam Schroeder

Electronic Arts (EA) is a massive firm in the video game industry, creating and publishing hit franchises such as The Sims, Madden, FIFA, and the Battlefield series.[1] On September 29, 2025, EA announced an agreement to be acquired by a consortium that includes the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) and Affinity Partners, which was founded by Jared Kushner, son-in-law to President Trump.[2] The leveraged buyout, valued at $55 billion, is the largest in history, and Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the transaction raises regulatory questions about the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).[3]

CFIUS is an inter-agency committee that reviews foreign investment deals that give a foreign nation control over a United States (U.S.) corporation, particularly when the transaction grants more than 25% voting power in a corporation considered sensitive to American interests.[4] Firms that qualify as sensitive include those that manufacture critical technologies or maintain and collect data on U.S. citizens.[5] CFIUS reviews these transactions and either proposes mitigation measures to eliminate national security risks or recommends that the President block the deal.

Over the past few years, data privacy has become more central to the CFIUS agenda. In 2018, Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), strengthening CFIUS and pushing it to include personal data and critical technologies as national security risks.[6] In 2019, Chinese investors in the dating app Grindr were forced to sell the company amid national security concerns over sensitive user data.[7] A year before, CFIUS blocked the merger of MoneyGram and Ant Financial over concerns about the Chinese company’s access to financial data.[8] In 2020, President Trump ordered ByteDance, a Chinese corporation, to divest from TikTok amid a widely publicized dispute over the sensitive data the app collects on U.S. citizens.[9] Since then, TikTok has been under continued scrutiny, and CFIUS, with presidential backing, has compelled ByteDance to reduce its stake to less than 20.[10] In 2022, President Biden reinforced this enforcement trend by explicitly directing CFIUS to include cyber vulnerabilities and the protection of U.S. citizens’ sensitive data.[11]

If TikTok and Grindr are enough to set off the alarm bells for CFIUS data privacy enforcement, the purchase of the sixth biggest video game company and one of the largest live-service game providers in the world should as well. EA, through its massive live-service game portfolio, is undoubtedly collecting terabytes of data on millions of U.S. citizens who play its games.[12] The risk of sensitive data collection through EA is comparable to that of companies like TikTok or Grindr, as players generate behavioral, social, and biometric data that can often exceed a terabyte per player, per day.[13] The data collected can include everything from gaming schedules to interactions with others and even players’ locations.[14] This information certainly lands within the realm of “sensitive personal data” as defined by CFIUS, as any number of these datapoints could be used to extrapolate the identities of players.[15] EA might also qualify for CFIUS review, as EA may be considered a developer of critical technologies in the artificial intelligence space.[16]

Under FIRRMA, the EA transaction blatantly calls for CFIUS oversight, and if any of the past transactions, such as TikTok or Grindr, go by, the EA transaction should be blocked.[17] Unfortunately, the minority inclusion of Affinity Partners, and by extension, Jared Kushner, likely makes the political reality of a proper CFIUS review non-existent, even with calls from senators and industry leaders to investigate.[18] There is potential for a solution like that seen in TikTok, but it would still have to be approved by President Trump, who seems unlikely to block a deal that benefits Kushner.[19] Allowing this deal could signal that CFIUS may be more lenient in its reviews moving forward, allowing for further foreign investment into tech and data-collection companies in the future, at least during the Trump administration or until Congress comes up with a more robust solution.

 

[1] Latest Games, Electronic Arts, https://www.ea.com/games [https://perma.cc/KHE3-HBAA] (last visited Nov. 23, 2025).

[2] Press Release, Elec. Arts, EA Announces Agreement to Be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for $55 Billion (Sep. 29, 2025), https://news.ea.com/press-releases/press-releases-details/2025/EA-Announces-Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-PIF-Silver-Lake-and-Affinity-Partners-for-55-Billion/default.aspx [https://perma.cc/E8R6-PYES].

[3] Zaheer Kachwala, ‘Battlefield’ Maker Electronic Arts to Go Private in Record-Setting $55 Billion LBO, Reuters (Sep. 29, 2025, at 14:41 ET), https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/electronic-arts-go-private-55-billion-deal-with-pif-silver-lake-2025-09-29/ [https://perma.cc/WN8H-5MQE].

[4] See 31 C.F.R. § 800.101 (2020).

[5] See 31 C.F.R. § 800.248(d)(10-12) (2020).

[6] Ama A. Adams, Brendan C. Hanifin & Emerson Siegle, Congress Passes Landmark CFIUS Reform Bill, Ropes & Gray (Aug. 6, 2018), https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2018/08/congress-passes-landmark-cfius-reform-bill [https://perma.cc/G76C-P6BC].

[7] See David E. Sanger, Grindr Is Owned by a Chinese Firm, and the U.S. Is Trying to Force It to Sell, N.Y. Times (Mar. 28, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-national-security.html [https://perma.cc/8QSH-FFMP]; Jay Peters, Grindr Has Been Sold By Its Chinese Owner After the US Expressed Security Concerns, The Verge (Mar. 6, 2020, at 12:26 CT) https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21168079/grindr-sold-chinese-owner-us-cfius-security-concerns-kunlun-lgbtq [https://perma.cc/5UBU-UYEZ].

[8] Ana Swanson & Paul Mozur, MoneyGram and Ant Financial Call Off Merger, Citing Regulatory Concerns, N.Y. Times (Jan. 2, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/business/moneygram-ant-financial-china-cfius.html [https://perma.cc/YM89-VZHY].

[9] Order Regarding the Acquisition of Musical.ly by ByteDance Ltd, 85 Fed. Reg. 51297 (2020).

[10] Exec. Order No. 14352, 90 Fed. Reg. 47219 (2025).

[11] Exec. Order No. 14083, 87 Fed. Reg. 57369 (2022).

[12] See Kyt Dotson, EA Looks to Big Data to Level Up the Video Game Industry, Silicon Angle (Feb. 28, 2013, at 08:42 ET), https://siliconangle.com/2013/02/28/ea-looks-to-big-data-to-level-up-the-video-game-industry/ [https://perma.cc/E57J-ZBJJ].

[13] See Justin Kearsley-Ho, How Do Video Games Collect and Use Data?, Gilbert’s, https://esportslawyers.ca/how-do-video-games-collect-and-use-data [https://perma.cc/SLE3-FDXB] (last visited Nov. 15, 2025).

[14] See Privacy and Cookie Policy, Elec. Arts (Jun. 23, 2025), https://www.ea.com/legal/privacy-and-cookie-policy [https://perma.cc/K2MM-L76P].

[15] See 31 C.F.R. § 800.241 (2020).

[16] See AI And Machine Learning, Elec. Arts, https://www.ea.com/technology/research/ai-machine-learning [https://perma.cc/V7M6-E8AU] (last visited Nov. 23, 2025); Rebekah Valentine, EA Says AI is ‘The Very Core’ of Its Business: What Does That Mean?, IGN (Sep. 18, 2024, 23:20 ET), https://www.ign.com/
articles/ea-says-ai-is-the-very-core-of-its-business-what-does-that-mean [https://perma.cc/J7ZG-S3NH].

[17] See Press Release, supra note 2.

[18] Vikki Blake, CWA Calls on FTC and CFIUS to “Scrutinize” EA Buyout and Protect Workers, Consumers, and “The Future of the Game Industry”, GamesIndustry.biz (Oct. 29, 2025), https://www.gamesindustry.biz/cwa-calls-on-ftc-and-cfius-to-scrutinize-ea-buyout-and-protect-workers-consumers-and-the-future-of-the-game-industry [https://perma.cc/KQF2-F9XY]; Press Release, Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Sen., Blumenthal & Warren Sound Alarm on Acquisition of American Video Game Producer by Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund & Jared Kushner’s Investment Firm (Oct. 14, 2025),

https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-and-warren-sound-alarm-on-acquisition-of-american-video-game-producer-by-saudi-arabias-sovereign-wealth-fund_jared-kushners-investment-firm [https://perma.cc/9N96-HGQZ].

[19] See Exec. Order No. 14352, 90 Fed. Reg. 47219 (2025).