I don’t know about this case, but private companies also have shares and can sell them out/issue them to other parties just like public companies. It’s just that it doesn’t happen via a stock exchange and a lot of what they do doesn’t need to be publicly disclosed.
This is good imo. Blizzard’s been rotting from the inside for years, and for this Microsoft deal to bring real change they need to let lots of the older employees go. Let’s see how it plays out.
Such a restriction on qualified investors is not the norm in most countries.