🎮 L'éditeur américain de jeux vidéo Electronic Arts (EA), qui produit notamment les populaires jeux de foot EA Sports FC (ex-FIFA) ou de simulation les Sims, a annoncé lundi son acquisition par un consortium de fonds d'investissement.

— Agence France-Presse (@afp.com) 2025-09-29T12:54:13.456Z

On est bien en 2025 quand l'un des plus gros éditeurs du JV quitte la bourse après une année moins faste pour être repris par l'Arabie Saoudite, un fils Trump et d'autres gens aussi peu recommandables... Si vous trouviez les chiffres de licenciements brutaux, la suite ne va pas vous surprendre... [contains quote post or other embedded content]

— ExServ (@exserv.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T12:59:39.455Z

L'avenir est "bright" pour EA d'après le communiqué, certainement pour les quelques parachutistes qui vont être "redondants" mais beaucoup moins pour les centaines (milliers ?) de gens dont l'avenir va être moins bright bizarrement... Le deal se fera au 1er trimestre 2027.

— ExServ (@exserv.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:03:17.356Z

J'en parlais hier comme d'une rumeur, j'ai même dis "imaginons que ça se concrétise demain" et bon bref, je pensais pas que ça irait aussi vite tout ça.

— ExServ (@exserv.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:12:08.752Z

It’s official: EA is going private. The leveraged buyout will be financed by a staggering $20 billion of debt, which likely means some aggressive cost cutting is ahead for EA in the coming months and years. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250929186526/en/EA-Announces-Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-PIF-Silver-Lake-and-Affinity-Partners-for-%2455-Billion

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T12:35:51.654Z

A lot of people are (understandably) focused on the Saudi Arabia and Kushner part of this, but the far bigger immediate impact will come from the new private EA being on the hook for $20 billion in debt. That could mean mass layoffs, more aggressive monetization, and other big cost-cutting measures

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T12:52:46.552Z

EA vient de devenir une boîte privée. Il lui faut maintenant effacer une dette de rachat de 20 milliards de dollars. Autant dire que tout le personnel est sur un siège éjectable qui lui brûle les fesses [contains quote post or other embedded content]

— Monsieur Plouf (@monsieurplouf.ploufman.net) 2025-09-29T14:00:21.853Z

Tout ça sous l'égide d'un CEO dont le mandat est déjà marqué par des centaines de licenciements d'hygiène tous les six mois. Donc oui, potentiel massacre à venir. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

— Gauthier 'Gautoz' Andres (@gautoz.cool) 2025-09-29T13:01:36.153Z

Chez Maxis et la team The Sims ils doivent pas rigoler des masses. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

— Gauthier 'Gautoz' Andres (@gautoz.cool) 2025-09-29T12:54:18.356Z

Scoop: Saudi Arabia is the largest contributor to the $36 billion in equity put in to finance a deal to take Electronic Arts private. EA will help bridge the country's sports and video-game ambitions as it diversifies away from oil, analysts say. Story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-29/saudi-plans-for-video-game-hub-grow-with-55-billion-ea-deal?srnd=undefined

— Cecilia D'Anastasio (@cecianasta.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T19:11:07.463Z

Whatever the industry, it's never great when a handful of people own more of the things [contains quote post or other embedded content]

— Riley MacLeod (@rcmacleod.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T18:46:13.059Z

Avec le rachat d'EA qui passe sous influence de l'Arabie Saoudite, ça va être intéressant devoir ce qui va se passer avec Les Sims, jeu ultra-inclusif. Intéressant, peut-être flippant.

— Loup Lassinat-Foubert (@louplf.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T16:40:50.859Z

$20,000,000,000 of debt financing is a shockingly large number to have to service, while also transitioning from a public to private organization and all the implications that has on the people that work in it. We've obviously never seen anything like this at this scale in the industry before. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T15:26:58.852Z

No one knows exactly what will happen here, but there's history of similarly structured buyouts to look at. Of course, none have been at this price tag before. Have to believe the bedrock of large-scale publishing has shifted dramatically. Will take time to see exactly how.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T15:43:14.856Z

Newsletter: This is The Case Against Generative AI, a comprehensive analysis of a financial collapse built on myths I’ll dispel, the markets’ unhealthy obsession with NVIDIA's growth, and the fact that there is not enough money in the world to fund OpenAI. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.161Z

The AI bubble inflated through mythology that LLMs and generative AI were "always getting more powerful," without ever defining what that meant. In reality, these probabilistic models never amounted to the promises that boosters and investors had made. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.178Z

LLMs are an output-driven technology, but most jobs that AI is meant to replace require far more than just spitting out stuff. In reality, executive excitement over AI shows that they have little understanding of labor - they're Business Idiots. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.201Z

The only thing “powerful” about generative AI is its mythology. It's unprofitable, unsustainable, and inherently limited due to the probabilistic nature of LLMs. Now the myth has grown out of control, and NVIDIA has got desperate to keep the growth going. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.219Z

The stock market has an unhealthy relationship with NVIDIA (it makes up 7-8% of the S&P 500). 55% year-over-year growth isn't enough - even if NVIDIA sells $72 billion of GPUs in a year, the markets would punish them for not keeping up an unrealistic pace. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#the-markets-have-become-dependent-on-nvidia-and-nvidia-is-taking-extraordinary-dangerous-measures-to-sustain-growth-investing-in-companies-specifically-to-raise-debt-to-buy-their-own-gpus

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.240Z

NVIDIA got desperate, and birthed "Neoclouds," debt-ridden data center companies selling AI compute. NVIDIA invests in them, sells them GPUs, and pays them for compute - all so they can raise money using contracts/GPUs as collateral...to buy more GPUs from NVIDIA. http://wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#there-is-less-than-a-billion-dollars-in-ai-compute-revenue-outside-of-nvidia-hyperscalers-and-openai-and-nvidia-is-using-its-compute-deals-to-help-neoclouds-raise-more-debt-to-buy-more-gpus

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.265Z

Beneath the surface of the AI compute story lies a dirty secret: most of the revenue is hyperscalers like Microsoft or OpenAI, with less than $1 billion of actual revenue in selling AI compute to other companies after hundreds of billions of dollars of capex. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#there-is-less-than-a-billion-dollars-in-ai-compute-revenue-outside-of-nvidia-hyperscalers-and-openai-and-nvidia-is-using-its-compute-deals-to-help-neoclouds-raise-more-debt-to-buy-more-gpus

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.288Z

Generative AI is a failure. Across every major AI company and hyperscaler selling models or software or compute, there's only $61 billion of revenue in 2025 - on hundreds of billions of dollars of capex and investment. Every AI company is losing money. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#every-ai-company-is-unprofitable-struggling-to-grow-and-generative-ais-revenues-are-pathetic-around-61-billion-in-2025-across-all-companies-comparable-to-their-costs-hundreds-of-billions

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.312Z

One of the greatest lies of the AI era is that LLMs are replacing software engineers - a flagrant lie. I called in Carl Brown of @internetofbugs.com, @mrnikli.bsky.social of "I Will Piledrive You If You Mention AI", and Colt Voege to explain exactly why. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#silicon-valley%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Creplacing-engineers-with-llms%E2%80%9D-story-is-a-lie

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.335Z

LLMs cannot replace software engineers and never will, because software engineering is the process of understanding, maintaining and executing code to produce functional software. LLMs do not “learn,” cannot “adapt,” and break down the moment things get complex. http://wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#silicon-valley%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Creplacing-engineers-with-llms%E2%80%9D-story-is-a-lie

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.369Z

Even Microsoft is failing at AI. I can exclusively report that in August, Microsoft had 8 million active paying licenses for Microsoft 365 Copilot, a product with 440 Million customers. Even if they have 4 million inactive ones, that's a 2.72% conversion rate. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#even-microsoft-is-failing-at-ai-with-only-8-million-active-paying-microsoft-365-copilot-subscribers-out-of-440-million-users

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.395Z

Things are worse for OpenAI, who needs more than $1 Trillion - $500bn in operational costs + $625bn-$800 billion in data centers - to fulfill their obligations. They cannot afford to survive, nor can they build the data centers to unlock NVIDIA's investment. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#openai-needs-more-than-a-trillion-dollars-500bn-in-operational-expenses-and-at-least-another-625bn-800bn-for-data-centers-and-there-is-not-enough-private-and-venture-capital-to-pay-for-it

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.416Z

OpenAI is also flagrantly lying about its projections, saying that by 2030 they'll make $200bn a year in revenue (they project to make $13bn this year). CFO Sarah Friar will one day have a lot to answer for after signing off on these numbers. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#openai-claims-it-will-make-200-billion-in-annual-revenue-in-four-years%E2%80%99-time-%E2%80%94-its-projections-are-ridiculous-and-i-don%E2%80%99t-see-how-its-cfo-approved-them

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.440Z

OpenAI and NVIDIA's deal is a farce, with $90bn gated behind 9GW of data centers that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take 2.5 years and $32.5bn a gigawatt. OpenAI can't afford to pay Oracle, either, or the rest of their $1 Trillion in bills. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#the-nvidia-openai-announcement-is-bullshit-and-no-nvidia-did-not-%E2%80%9Cgive-openai-100-billion%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%94-in-fact-90-billion-of-the-funding-is-contingent-on-openai-building-125-billion-of-data-centers-with-200-billion-gpus

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.464Z

If you do not believe we are in an AI bubble, you are choosing to ignore reality. We are at around $61 billion in revenue in 2025 for an industry that took half a trillion dollars to work out there may be no profitable way to sell AI models or software. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#we%E2%80%99re-in-a-bubble-whether-you-like-it-or-not

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.485Z

I need to be very explicit: there is not enough money in the world to fund OpenAI's $1 Trillion in commitments, and that's across the top 10 private equity firms, all US venture capital, and both Goldman and JPMorgan's direct lending funds. This is very bad. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#the-world%E2%80%99s-private-credit-and-venture-capital-cannot-afford-openai

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.509Z

It is now inevitable the AI bubble bursts. Deutsche Bank and Bain both have said that this era cannot last. Every single "vibe coding" or "power of AI" story perpetuates a myth that will savage our markets and hurt retail investors. It's going to be horrible. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/#i-need-you-to-listen-to-me

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) 2025-09-29T17:37:12.532Z

Trump just announced a 100% tariff on foreign movies—five months after he last announced he was going to do it and Hollywood freaked it and no one was ever able to pin down how a tariff on a film would even work. New post provides no further details.

— Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:54:36.458Z

From May: Why Trump’s ‘100% Tariff’ Proposal for Foreign Films Doesn’t Make Sense https://time.com/7282543/trump-foreign-film-tariff-international-movie-production-us-hollywood-china/

— Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:55:23.655Z