Ryan Cohen, the GameStop chairman and CEO whose Chewy exit made him a household name in retail-investor circles, sat down with Jason Calacanis on the All-In podcast and made clear that his unsolicited run at eBay is not a pose. “I’m going to do whatever we need to do, whatever I need to do in order to succeed,” he said when asked about going hostile or launching a tender offer. The message to eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY | EBAY Price Prediction) shareholders, and to the board that already told him no, is that he plans to keep showing up.
The board of eBay has treated the bid as something to be managed rather than negotiated. In May, directors rejected Cohen’s $55.5 billion offer at $125 per share as “neither credible nor attractive,” citing financing, operational risk, and governance concerns. Cohen’s response was to keep buying. GameStop (NYSE:GME) has built its position to roughly 7.8% of eBay, and its Q1 FY2026 filing now lists the “proposed acquisition of eBay Inc.” as a formal risk factor, complete with derivative positions providing economic exposure.
Cohen’s argument in his own words
The strategic case Cohen made to Calacanis was a scope argument, not a cost-cutting one. “It makes sense for me to pay this for the business because of what I could do with the business. Not just short-term in terms of increasing the earnings, but long-term in terms of really taking significant market share in live commerce,” he said, framing the deal as a path to “a digital marketplace for gaming.” Existing eBay management, in his telling, could “never” build that “in their wildest dreams.”
Then comes the antitrust wrinkle. Cohen argued that eBay’s natural strategic acquirers, Amazon and other platform giants, are boxed out by regulators, so a competing bid is unlikely. Without rival bidders, eBay’s bankers end up negotiating against themselves, and if active holders sell into the open market to event-driven funds, the board faces a different shareholder base than the one that backed the rejection. Cohen said he is working with “high-priced advisors” and has “a lot of different escalation paths.”
What the numbers support
The arithmetic of the bid is what skeptics keep returning to. GameStop carries a market cap near $9.64 billion and is trying to swallow a company worth roughly $49.4 billion. eBay closed out FY2025 with $11.1 billion in revenue, $1.996 billion in net income, and a $1.2 billion all-cash deal for Depop already in the pipeline, details visible in the company’s Q4 8-K filing. eBay shares have risen 28% year to date and ~50% over the past year, which complicates any premium argument. The stock currently trades at $111, narrowing the gap to Cohen’s $125 offer and shrinking the headline premium.
Financing is the other open question. GameStop has roughly $7.40 billion in cash and securities and points to a $20 billion financing commitment from TD Securities, though that arrives in the form of a “highly confident letter” rather than hard capital. Michael Burry exited his GameStop position after the bid, telling anyone who would listen that “the debt is the problem.” Steve Eisman lined up alongside him.
What the market is pricing
Prediction markets have settled into a clear stance. Polymarket bettors put the odds of GameStop acquiring eBay by year-end 2026 at 14%, with an 86% implied probability that the deal fails. The market is competitive and well-trafficked, which makes the skepticism harder to dismiss as thin liquidity.
GameStop itself is the wildcard. Q1 FY2026 revenue grew 14% to $835.3 million, gross margin expanded to 40.7% from 34.5%, and the collectibles category jumped 65% year over year. Shares are roughly flat year to date, which suggests holders are not penalizing Cohen for the eBay distraction, but they are not rewarding him either.
Cohen has built the cash, the stake, and the rhetoric. Whether eBay’s board ever has to actually negotiate depends on whether shareholders make them.
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