GameStop's $56 Billion Power Play: Ryan Cohen Wants to Buy eBay and Challenge Amazon
Nobody saw this coming. The same company that once hawked used game cartridges in shopping malls is now making a run at one of the web's oldest e-commerce giants.
GameStop submitted a non-binding offer to buy eBay for $55.5 billion — pricing it at $125 per share in a half-cash, half-stock deal. For context, GameStop itself was worth just $11.9 billion as of Friday, making this a bid for a company nearly four times its own size.
The Man Behind the Bet
CEO Ryan Cohen is the architect of this deal. He wrote directly to eBay's board chair, outlining a plan to cut costs, improve margins, and personally run the combined company. The goal, in his own words? Make eBay a "legit competitor to Amazon."
To fund the acquisition, GameStop locked in a non-binding letter from TD Bank for up to $20 billion in debt financing and pledged $2 billion in annual savings within a year of closing. Cohen also pointed to GameStop's 1,600 U.S. store locations as a physical backbone for eBay — supporting fulfillment, authentication, and live commerce.
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eBay's Mixed Signals
eBay isn't in bad shape right now. The platform just posted a 19% revenue increase in Q1, with gross merchandise volume jumping 18% to $22.2 billion. But the longer arc tells a different story — GMV peaked at $100 billion in 2020 and had fallen to $79.6 billion by 2025, pressured by Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and TikTok Shop.
Markets are skeptical. eBay shares rose roughly 10% in premarket trading but stayed well below the $125 offer price, signaling that investors doubt this deal gets done. GameStop shares dropped.
The ball is now in eBay's court.