EA's $55B Deal to Go Private, Walmart CEO's AI Warning, CEO Changes 9/29/25

Squawk on the Street

CNBC

Investing, Business, News

4.1 • 567 Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer and David Faber led off the show with the deal the day: Videogame publisher Electronic Arts has agreed to be taken private by Silver Lake Partners, Affinity Partners and Saudi Arabia's PIF in a $55 billion buyout. The anchors reacted to comments by Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, who was quoted as saying "It's very clear AI is going to change literally every job." Changes in the C-suite: New CEOs at CSX, Barrick Mining and GSK, while Comcast named its President Mike Cavanagh to join Brian Roberts as Co-CEO effective January 2026. Also in focus: Markets and government shutdown watch, President Trump reiterates his threat to impose 100% tariffs on movies filmed outside of the U.S., Jim's new book "How To Make Money In Any Market" goes on sale Tuesday. Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant. Squawk on the Street Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Market Moving Insight and Analysis.
0:02.0	Join Jim Kramer, David Faber, and me, Carl Kainteneah, on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Good Monday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Kintanio with Jim Kramer and David Faber at post-9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Futures are higher coming off a down week. Got some M&A to work with. We are on shutdown watch, not knowing if we'll get, for example,
0:21.5	a jobs number on Friday, 10-year 415. Our roadmap begins with video game giant electronic arts
0:27.3	going private in a $55 billion deal. We'll break down the details. Plus, we are tracking
0:32.5	multiple C-suite changes this morning. Comcast, GSC, Barrack, and CSX all announced leadership shakeups.
0:40.3	And there is an AI wake-up call. It is from Walmart. It's CEO Doug McMillan out with a strong
0:46.2	warning on the impact of AI when it comes to the overall workforce. Let's begin with
0:51.9	electronic arts, though, agreeing to be taken private in this $55 billion deal.
0:55.7	David, I assume you're all over.
0:57.6	This got some historic levels in terms of LBO history, right?
1:00.5	It's the biggest of all time.
1:01.9	You know, we go back.
1:03.3	2007 was the TXU deal that I can remember well, of course, having reported on it, KKR and
1:07.5	TPG, didn't work out well.
1:09.6	Natural gas in Texas right before, yeah, the fracking
1:13.1	revolution and prices and what happened there. You go RJR and Abisco, you want to go with way back
1:19.7	1989. But what's interesting here, guys, well, any number of things, of course. The stock had moved
1:23.9	up on Friday because reporting that the deal was imminent, and in fact,
1:28.0	that did prove to be the case.
1:30.5	This is the Saudis buying EA for all intents and purposes.
1:34.7	This is the PIF of Saudi Arabia.
1:36.9	It's going to be by far the largest single investor in the overall consortium.
	...

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