Jared Kushner Enjoys Gaming Sessions with the Saudi Crown Prince

In 2018, it was reported that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated on the orders of Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, with his body dismembered using a bone saw. Interestingly, Jared Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has a penchant for gaming with MBS, even before they teamed up for a historic leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts, the company behind the Battlefield franchise.

This intriguing detail emerged in a recent profile discussing Kushner’s diplomatic efforts. Here’s a key excerpt:

Kushner’s most significant recent venture was the acquisition of Electronic Arts, commonly known as E.A. Last August, he facilitated a connection between M.B.S. and Andrew Wilson, the CEO of E.A. They met in Neom, the ambitious city being developed by M.B.S. along the Red Sea, where they played a round of golf. “Jared brought M.B.S. the deal,” an American with connections to Middle Eastern leaders shared. Shortly after, M.B.S. formed a consortium, including Affinity, to purchase E.A. for a staggering $55 billion—the largest leveraged buyout ever. This deal raised concerns regarding regulatory oversight, as E.A. manages a vast amount of user data. However, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, primarily composed of Trump officials, ultimately approved the deal last month.

What games do you think they enjoy together? Fortnite? Rocket League? Among Us? I can only imagine MBS never gets voted out of the airlock.

Equally striking is the seemingly casual nature of how one of the most significant deals in gaming history came to be. It started with an online party chat, and before you know it, EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson is reportedly golfing with someone linked to a high-profile assassination in a futuristic city that exists mostly in concept art. Just like that, a $55 billion deal is struck, leaving one of the largest gaming publishers in the world burdened with so much debt that it will likely face an unprecedented wave of cost-cutting measures.

Surely, there was more strategy involved than it appears. Yet, with Saudi Arabia’s other major gaming entity, Savvy Games Group, reportedly puzzled about the future organization of the country’s publishing operations, perhaps not.