GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen Gives Bizarre New Interview on $56 Billion eBay Offer, Can't Say Exactly Where He'll Get All the Money From

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen has failed to accidental precisely wherever he’s going to get each the wealth helium needs to bargain eBay for $56 billion, successful a bizarre caller interrogation successful which helium continued to accidental helium didn't recognize the questions helium was being asked.

Yesterday, GameStop made an unsolicited $55.5 cardinal connection to bargain eBay astatine $125.00 per stock successful currency and stock. Cohen, who would go CEO of the combined institution should the woody spell through, told The Wall Street Journal helium wants to marque eBay a “legit rival to Amazon,” arsenic helium bids to turn his concern beyond games and collectibles and deed a $35 cardinal payout successful the process.

GameStop said the currency portion of the connection is expected to beryllium funded from a operation of currency and liquid investments connected GameStop’s equilibrium sheet, which totaled $9.4 cardinal arsenic of January 31, 2026, and “third-party acquisition financing,” with up to $20 cardinal successful indebtedness financing from TD Securities.

With GameStop presently valued astatine $10.69 cardinal (assuming GameStop is providing each its banal for the deal), Cohen is looking astatine a $16 cardinal shortfall. So, you’d ideate he’d person a wide program for that $16 billion. But successful an interrogation with CNBC’s Squawk Box programme, Cohen repeatedly refused to accidental wherever the wealth would travel from, insisting helium didn’t recognize the enactment of questioning and repeatedly pointing to the GameStop website.

“It’s connected our website. It’s fractional cash, fractional stock. But the details are connected our website,” Cohen replied erstwhile interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin asked to marque “the mathematics math.”

When the shortfall was breached down successful plain terms, each Cohen could reply was: “we’ll spot what happens.”

Sorkin, intelligibly struggling to enactment retired however to get Cohen to item his plan, asked, plainly, wherever the remainder of the wealth would travel from. “It’s fractional cash. Half stock,” Cohen replied.

At this point, 1 of Sorkin’s co-presenters came successful to repetition the question: wherever is the remainder of the wealth going to travel from?

“I don’t recognize your question,” is each Cohen offered. “We’re offering fractional cash, fractional stock. And we person the quality to contented banal successful bid to get the woody done. But the afloat details of the connection are connected our website.”

That suggests that the projected woody could necessitate important stock issuances and massively dilute existing shareholders.

Cohen was past asked, 1 past time, for much penetration due to the fact that helium was connected air. “I don’t recognize your question," helium replied, repeating himself.

Perhaps wisely moving on, Cohen was asked however GameStop could marque eBay “a legit rival to Amazon,” arsenic helium has says.

“There’s an accidental to physique a overmuch larger business, to marque the concern overmuch much businesslike and to accelerate gross growth,” Cohen replied. “eBay is simply a precise beardown business. GameStop, precise hard business. Should person been bankrupt aggregate times over. And it’s doing okay. It’s making a fewer bucks. eBay is successful a precise very beardown position, but it could beryllium successful a overmuch stronger position. And it could beryllium a overmuch larger concern than it presently is.”

And that’s wherever the interrogation ends, leaving america fundamentally wherever we started. The Wall Street Journal has said Cohen whitethorn crook to Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds to plug the wealth gap, but helium failed to suggest that would beryllium the lawsuit successful the interview.

Will eBay spell for the deal? The auction website told IGN it had nary discussions with oregon outreach from GameStop anterior to receiving the proposal, but it said its Board of Directors, successful consultation with its fiscal and ineligible advisors, “will cautiously reappraisal and see the unsolicited connection to find the people of enactment that it believes is successful the champion interests of the institution and each eBay shareholders.”

“The Board volition reappraisal this connection with a absorption connected the worth to beryllium delivered to eBay shareholders, including the worth of the GameStop banal information and the quality of GameStop to present a binding, actionable proposal,” eBay continued.

It’s worthy noting that Cohen could marque up to $35 cardinal successful banal if the company’s marketplace worth hits $100 billion, among different compensation bundle criteria. In January, the 40-year-old billionaire told The Wall Street Journal helium wanted a “big” woody that is “ultimately either going to beryllium genius oregon totally, wholly foolish.”

As of January, Cohen had a involvement of implicit 9% successful GameStop and was its biggest idiosyncratic shareholder. Investor Michael Burry, who owns shares successful the company, said earlier this twelvemonth that Cohen “has a crappy business, and helium is milking it champion helium tin portion taking vantage of the meme banal improvement to rise currency and hold for an accidental to marque a large bargain of a existent increasing currency cattle business.”

At the opening of 2025, GameStop had astir 2,325 locations successful the U.S., but by the extremity of the twelvemonth it had closed 590 of them. It past kicked disconnected 2026 by closing adjacent much stores arsenic portion of an effort to trim costs.

For years present immoderate person called GameStop a dying bricks and mortar retailer arsenic it looks to caller and often bizarre ways to make revenue. August 2023 saw the institution propulsion retired of crypto, and it unopen its short-lived NFT marketplace conscionable a fewer months later. More precocious (and overmuch to the dismay of its employees), GameStop held its first-ever Trade Anything Day, which saw customers bringing successful virtually thing for trade-in recognition astatine their section stores.

Image credit: CNBC / YouTube.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].