EBay should be worth a lot more money. I'm thinking about turning it into something worth hundreds of billions.
In the early days of May 2026, GameStop — once dismissed as a relic of a fading retail era — extended a $55.5 billion unsolicited bid for eBay, offering $125 per share at a 20 percent premium. CEO Ryan Cohen, the architect of GameStop's unlikely resurrection, is wagering that two struggling platforms can be fused into something greater than their parts: a genuine rival to Amazon. The move asks a fundamental question that markets and boardrooms must now answer — whether audacity, when backed by a credible plan, is enough to rewrite the rules of scale.
- A company worth $11 billion is attempting to absorb one worth $46 billion, and the sheer asymmetry of the bid has rattled conventional assumptions about who gets to be a buyer.
- eBay shares surged 13 percent in after-hours trading, signaling that investors see enough plausibility in the offer to price in the possibility — even before the board has said a word.
- Cohen is not waiting quietly: he has secured $20 billion in debt financing from TD Bank and signaled he will take the fight directly to eBay shareholders through a proxy battle if the board refuses to engage.
- The cost-cutting logic is pointed — eBay spent $2.4 billion on marketing last year while active buyer growth barely moved, and GameStop's plan targets that inefficiency as the clearest path to unlocking value.
- GameStop's 1,600 retail stores are being repositioned not as liabilities but as physical infrastructure — fulfillment centers, authentication hubs, and live commerce venues that could give eBay something Amazon already has.
- The outcome now rests on three gatekeepers — eBay's board, federal regulators, and shareholders of both companies — each of whom must decide whether this is transformation or theater.
On a Sunday morning in early May, GameStop announced a $55.5 billion unsolicited bid for eBay — $125 per share, split evenly between cash and GameStop stock, representing a 20 percent premium over eBay's last closing price. The announcement sent eBay shares up 13 percent in after-hours trading and GameStop's own stock up roughly 4 percent. For a company that five years ago was being written off as a dying strip-mall chain, it was a striking declaration of intent.
CEO Ryan Cohen, who had telegraphed months earlier that he was hunting for a transformational acquisition, told the Wall Street Journal he believed eBay could be rebuilt into a platform worth hundreds of billions — a true rival to Amazon. To fund the deal, GameStop had assembled a roughly 5 percent stake in eBay, secured a $20 billion debt commitment from TD Bank, and planned to draw on $9.4 billion in cash reserves. The obvious tension: GameStop's market cap stood at around $11 billion, while eBay's hovered near $46 billion. The smaller company was reaching for something four times its size.
Cohen's pitch to eBay's board was built around a specific diagnosis. eBay had spent $2.4 billion on marketing in the prior fiscal year while net active buyer growth had barely moved. GameStop proposed cutting $2 billion in annual costs within the first year, arguing that a platform nearly everyone already knows does not need to spend like one that doesn't. Beyond the financials, GameStop offered something physical: its network of roughly 1,600 U.S. retail stores, which it envisioned converting into fulfillment centers, authentication hubs, and live commerce venues for eBay's marketplace.
If the board rejected the offer, Cohen made clear he was prepared to take the case directly to eBay shareholders through a proxy fight. eBay did not immediately comment. What lay ahead was a gauntlet of board deliberations, regulatory review, and shareholder votes — a process that would determine whether Cohen's vision of retail transformation was a credible next chapter or an elaborate gamble dressed up as strategy.
On a Sunday morning in early May, GameStop announced it was making a play for eBay—a $55.5 billion bid that caught the market off guard. The offer came in at $125 per share, split evenly between cash and GameStop stock, representing a 20 percent jump from eBay's closing price the Friday before. It was a premium designed to get attention, and it worked. eBay shares jumped 13 percent in after-hours trading. GameStop's own stock climbed about 4 percent.
The move was audacious for a company that, just five years earlier, had been written off as a relic of the pre-internet retail world. GameStop had become famous as a "meme stock"—the darling of retail investors in 2021 who had bid up its shares in a frenzy that defied traditional valuation logic. Now, under CEO Ryan Cohen, the company was signaling it had bigger ambitions than selling video games from strip malls. Cohen told the Wall Street Journal he saw eBay as a platform that could be transformed into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars, a genuine rival to Amazon.
The numbers told a story of confidence bordering on audacity. GameStop had assembled roughly a 5 percent stake in eBay and secured a $20 billion debt commitment from TD Bank. The company would fund the remainder from its own cash reserves—about $9.4 billion sitting on the balance sheet. But there was an obvious problem: GameStop's market capitalization before the announcement was roughly $11 billion. eBay was worth around $46 billion. GameStop was trying to buy a company four times its size, a feat that raised immediate questions about whether anyone would take the bid seriously.
Yet Cohen was not bluffing about his intentions. He told the Journal he was prepared to take the offer directly to eBay shareholders through a proxy fight if the board rejected it. If the deal succeeded, he would become CEO of the combined company. GameStop's pitch to eBay's board included a detailed cost-cutting plan: eliminate $2 billion in annual spending within the first year, with particular focus on eBay's marketing budget, which had ballooned to $2.4 billion in the previous fiscal year while the company's net active buyer growth had flatlined at less than 0.75 percent. The argument was straightforward—eBay was spending more money to acquire customers on a platform that nearly everyone already knew about.
GameStop also offered something tangible: its network of roughly 1,600 retail stores across the United States. In GameStop's vision, these locations could become fulfillment centers, authentication hubs, and live commerce venues for eBay's marketplace. It was a way to give eBay physical infrastructure at a time when e-commerce companies were struggling with logistics and trust.
The proposal required approval from eBay's board, regulators, and shareholders from both companies. eBay did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company faced a choice: engage with an unsolicited bid from a much smaller competitor, or dismiss it as a publicity stunt. Cohen had hinted at this move months earlier, telling CNBC in January that he was planning to acquire a publicly traded consumer company larger than GameStop, something he described as transformational and unprecedented in capital markets history.
What remained unclear was whether eBay's board would view GameStop as a credible acquirer or whether the regulatory environment would permit such a consolidation. Both companies had struggled to adapt to changing consumer behavior. eBay had lost ground to Amazon and specialized marketplaces. GameStop had reinvented itself from a dying brick-and-mortar chain into something else entirely—a vehicle for Cohen's vision of retail transformation. Whether that vision extended to eBay would depend on decisions made in boardrooms and regulatory offices in the weeks ahead.
Citações Notáveis
EBay should be worth a lot more money. I'm thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars.— Ryan Cohen, GameStop CEO, to the Wall Street Journal
More spend is not producing more users on a marketplace with near-universal brand recognition.— GameStop's statement regarding eBay's marketing budget
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why would GameStop, a company that nearly went bankrupt, think it could acquire something four times its size?
Because Ryan Cohen believes the size of your current market value doesn't determine what you can do. He's betting that eBay is undervalued and mismanaged—that its board has been throwing money at marketing without getting results. If he's right about that diagnosis, the size of the bid becomes less about GameStop's current worth and more about the value he thinks he can unlock.
But doesn't the board just say no immediately?
They could. But Cohen signaled he'd go around them to shareholders directly. That's the real threat. If enough shareholders think eBay is being run poorly, they might vote to negotiate with him, even if the board wants nothing to do with it.
What's the actual plan here? How does GameStop make this work?
Cut $2 billion in annual costs—mostly from a marketing budget that isn't producing growth. Then use GameStop's 1,600 stores as a physical network for eBay. Fulfillment, authentication, live selling. It's turning retail locations into infrastructure for e-commerce instead of just selling products.
That's clever, but does it actually work? Can you really cut that much spending without breaking the business?
That's the bet. eBay's marketing spend is enormous relative to what it's producing. If Cohen is right that the brand is already known and the money is wasted, then yes. If he's wrong, he's gutted a platform that depends on constant investment to stay competitive.
What happens if the board says no and shareholders don't back him?
Then it was a very expensive signal that GameStop is serious about transformation, and eBay remains independent. But Cohen has already moved the needle—eBay's stock jumped 13 percent just on the announcement. That's real value created, at least for a moment.
Is this actually going to happen?
Probably not. The regulatory questions alone are substantial. But the fact that it's being attempted at all tells you something about how much the retail and e-commerce worlds have shifted. Five years ago, this would have been unthinkable.