Everybody on Wall Street Is Ridiculing Ryan Cohen's $56B eBay Bid, But I'm Not So Sure
I watched Ryan Cohen's CNBC interview. You know the one, the Squawk Box appearance where Becky Quick asked him, twice, "Where's the rest of the money coming from?" and he just... stared at her. Awkward silence. Then: "I don't understand your question."
It was painful. Genuinely. I cringed. My coffee got cold while I sat there, mouth slightly open, wondering if the CEO of GameStop, a guy who built Chewy from nothing into a $3.35 billion company, had somehow forgotten how basic arithmetic works.
And look, I get why everyone's dunking on him.
The Globe and Mail called the bid "audacious, delusional and cringeworthy." Michael Burry, yes, the Michael Burry, the guy who saw the 2008 financial crisis coming when nobody else did, dumped his entire GameStop position after the bid dropped, warning "never confuse debt for creativity." eBay's board formally rejected the offer as "neither credible nor attractive." Moody's called it "credit negative."
The math, admittedly, looks absurd on its face. GameStop is worth about $12 billion. eBay is worth nearly $48 billion. Cohen proposed buying the larger company for $56 billion, half cash, half stock, with only $9 billion in cash on hand and a non-binding "highly confident" letter from TD Bank for $20 billion in debt financing. That letter, by the way, comes with a catch that basically kneecaps itself: it only works if the combined company maintains an investment-grade credit rating. Moody's already said that's not happening.
The numbers don't add up. The financing isn't real. The CNBC interview was a disaster.
So why am I not so sure this is as stupid as everyone says?
The Man Who's Been Underestimated Before
Here's something Wall Street keeps forgetting: Ryan Cohen has made a career out of people thinking he doesn't know what he's doing.
In 2011, at age 25, he started an online pet food company. More than 100 venture capital firms rejected him. A college dropout trying to compete with Amazon in pet supplies? Please. They laughed.
He sold Chewy to PetSmart six years later for $3.35 billion, the largest e-commerce acquisition in history at the time.
Then in 2020, he took a 13% stake in GameStop, a dying brick-and-mortar video game retailer that everyone had left for dead. He joined the board, became chairman, then CEO. Since taking over operations, he's cut roughly $800 million in costs and turned the company from a $381 million net loss to a $418 million net profit, even as sales declined.
That's not nothing. That's actually remarkable operational discipline.
He also bought 4,710 Bitcoin for GameStop in May 2025, quietly, through an SEC filing most people overlooked, turning the company into the 14th largest corporate Bitcoin holder before anyone noticed.
The guy has a pattern: people mock him, then he wins.
I'm not saying that pattern guarantees this eBay bid will work. It absolutely doesn't. But dismissing him as a clown? That requires ignoring his entire track record.
The Strategic Case Nobody's Talking About
Let's step back from the financing circus and look at what Cohen is actually trying to build.
The Collectibles Angle
GameStop has been quietly pivoting from selling new video games (a dying business, thanks to digital downloads) into collectibles and trading cards. In the most recent quarter, collectibles made up 33% of GameStop's total revenue, up from 21% a year earlier.
eBay is already the dominant platform for collectibles, trading cards, rare sneakers, vintage toys, high-end fashion. The company's focus categories (collectibles, automotive parts, fashion, refurbished electronics) now represent roughly 70% of total eBay GMV. The collectibles category was the single largest contributor to eBay's GMV growth last quarter.
Do you see the overlap?
BMO analysts noted the combination could create real synergies by pairing GameStop's store network with eBay's large buyer base and authentication infrastructure, "especially in high-margin enthusiast categories including trading cards and luxury goods."
GameStop employees already inspect and grade gaming hardware and trading cards. Those same employees could verify collectibles sold on eBay before they're shipped, solving one of the biggest problems in online collectibles: authentication fraud.
This isn't random. This is two companies whose strategic directions are actually converging.
The Physical Infrastructure Play
This is the part that sounds weirdest: Cohen wants to use GameStop's 1,600 U.S. stores as drop-off and shipping locations for eBay orders. He's also proposed live sales broadcasts from GameStop locations featuring eBay products.
Wall Street laughed. Brick-and-mortar? For eBay? That's going backwards.
But... is it?
Amazon has been building physical locations for years, Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, pickup lockers. The reason is simple: the last mile of e-commerce is expensive and hard. Having physical nodes where people can drop off returns, pick up packages, and get items authenticated is genuinely valuable infrastructure.
Cohen's not suggesting eBay become a brick-and-mortar retailer. He's suggesting eBay get a physical fulfillment and authentication network, something it currently lacks and Amazon has been building for a decade.
The Amazon Competitor Narrative
This is the big one. Cohen has framed the deal as creating a legitimate competitor to Amazon. "EBay has the second largest commerce franchise and there's a big opportunity to do something much larger," he said.
Amazon does roughly $300 billion in third-party sales. eBay does about $80 billion in GMV. That's a huge gap, but eBay is still the second-largest player in Western e-commerce.
Cohen's argument: eBay has been mismanaged. The company spent $2.4 billion on sales and marketing in fiscal 2025 while only adding 1 million net active buyers. He says he can cut $2 billion in annual costs within 12 months, boost profitability, and reinvest in growth.
Is that realistic? eBay's EBITDA margin is already around 31%, triple GameStop's. There may not be $2 billion in fat to cut without damaging the business.But Cohen's track record at GameStop suggests he knows how to find costs others can't.
The "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose" Theory
Felix Salmon at Slate Money called the bid "largely posturing dressed up as M&A." He might be right, but not in the way he means.
Here's the fascinating part: Ryan Cohen wins either way.
GameStop already owns a 5% stake in eBay. Cohen himself has a massive personal position through derivatives. The bid, priced at $125 per share, was a 46% premium to where eBay was trading. Even though the deal probably won't close, eBay's stock has been elevated by the takeover chatter.
Every dollar the bid adds to eBay's share price is a dollar of profit on Cohen's existing position. He's essentially using the bid itself as a catalyst.
There's also the GameStop angle. Cohen's compensation package, worth roughly $35 billion if he hits certain targets, requires him to lift GameStop's market value more than tenfold. Making audacious, headline-grabbing moves that energize his retail investor base and boost the stock? That's directly aligned with his personal financial incentives.
And then there's the ultimate wildcard: even if Cohen can't buy eBay, his bid puts the company "in play." Other acquirers might now take a serious look. Private equity firms. Tech giants. Cohen's 5% stake profits regardless of who ends up buying.
The Financing: Yes, It's Shaky. But Maybe Not Impossible.
Let's be honest about the numbers. They don't work cleanly.
GameStop's $9 billion in cash plus TD Bank's conditional $20 billion commitment gets you to $29 billion. The deal needs roughly $56 billion. The "half stock" portion would require GameStop to issue something like four times its current outstanding shares, what Slate Money called "the most dilutive acquisition we've seen in years."
Moody's says the combined debt would balloon to about $31.4 billion, more than 400% above eBay's current levels, with annual interest expenses potentially exceeding $1 billion.
But here's what the critics sometimes skip: Cohen has said the deal is essentially structured as a reverse merger, with significant contributions from eBay shareholders.In that scenario, eBay shareholders would own a large portion of the combined company, reducing the cash needed upfront. The "half cash, half stock" framing may be oversimplified, the actual structure could involve eBay shareholders rolling their equity into the new entity.
That's still incredibly complicated. It still requires massive debt. It still requires eBay shareholders to buy into Cohen's vision. But it's not as mathematically impossible as the "GameStop writes a $56 billion check" straw man.
Also: GameStop holds 4,710 Bitcoin, pledged as collateral on Coinbase Prime. Depending on Bitcoin's price, that's a non-trivial asset that could be deployed.
None of this means the financing is easy. It's not. But "hard" and "impossible" are different things, especially for a guy who's made a career out of doing what people said couldn't be done.
The eBay Board: Standing on Principle or Protecting Their Turf?
eBay's rejection letter cited six concerns: standalone prospects, financing uncertainty, impact on long-term growth, leverage and operational risks, leadership structure, and GameStop's governance and executive incentives.
Some of those are legitimate. Some... maybe less so.
Cohen fired back in his own letter, pointing out that eBay CEO Jamie Iannone has received roughly $144 million in compensation over six years and has "not purchased a single share of eBay common stock in the open market." Cohen, by contrast, takes no salary, no cash bonuses, no golden parachute, and has invested $128 million of his own money in GameStop stock.
"Run by a bunch of losers," Cohen called eBay's management in an interview with Piers Morgan.
Harsh? Absolutely. But it's exactly the kind of rhetoric activist investors have used for decades to shake up complacent boards. Carl Icahn waged a very public proxy fight against eBay in 2014, calling management "incompetent" and accusing the board of conflicts of interest. He eventually settled, and eBay spun off PayPal, creating enormous shareholder value.
The question is whether Cohen can pull off something similar. He's already signaled he may try to call a special shareholder meeting to elect directors more favorable to his proposal, though analysts note he'd likely need a considerably larger stake to make that work.
The Elephant in the Room: Bed Bath & Beyond
I can't write this article without mentioning it.
In March 2022, Cohen took a nearly 10% stake in Bed Bath & Beyond. He agitated for changes. The stock surged as much as 70% as retail investors piled in. Five months later, Cohen dumped his entire position, making about $68 million in profit. The stock collapsed. Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy the following April.
Retail investors who followed him in got crushed. Some lost their life savings. A lawsuit alleged, though never proved, a "pump and dump" scheme.
This is the dark cloud over everything Cohen does. He energizes retail investors. His moves create massive stock moves. And sometimes, regular people get hurt when those moves reverse.
Does that make the eBay bid a scam? Not necessarily. But it means everyone should be clear-eyed about what might actually be happening here. Cohen's incentives are complicated. He's playing multiple games at once, CEO, activist investor, meme-stock icon, personal portfolio manager.
You can admire the strategic creativity while also recognizing that not everyone wins when Cohen wins.
So... Is He Crazy or Crazy Like a Fox?
Here's where I land after looking at all of this.
The conventional Wall Street take, "this is delusional, the math doesn't work, Cohen is a clown", is too simple. It ignores his track record, the genuine strategic overlap between GameStop and eBay, and the multiple ways Cohen benefits even if the deal fails.
But the fanboy take, "Cohen is a genius playing 4D chess, he's going to buy eBay and destroy Amazon", is also too simple. The financing is genuinely precarious. The debt load would be crushing. eBay's board has real reasons to reject the bid. And Cohen's Bed Bath & Beyond history deserves scrutiny, not worship.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Cohen may not actually expect to buy eBay. What he may be doing, and what his CNBC interview might have been designed to do, as some communications experts have suggested, is drawing attention to eBay's undervaluation, agitating for change, boosting the value of his existing stake, energizing his retail investor base, and positioning himself as the solution to eBay's problems.
As Steve Soltis at UVA's Darden School of Business put it: "There was clearly a counter-intuitive, and you might even say Machiavellian genius angle to Cohen's performance. He earned the moniker 'the Meme King' for a reason."
Even if Cohen never buys eBay, he's already changed the conversation. eBay's board is now under pressure. Shareholders are asking questions. Other potential acquirers are watching. And Cohen's 5% stake is worth more than it was before he made his move.
That's not failure. That's a different kind of success.
What to Watch Next
The story isn't over. Here's what I'm tracking:
- Proxy fight potential: Cohen has hinted he may take his case directly to eBay shareholders. The window for nominating directors ahead of eBay's June annual meeting has closed, but he could pursue a special meeting or wait until next year's cycle.
- The TD Bank letter: That "highly confident" financing commitment is non-binding. Watch for whether TD upgrades it to something firmer, or quietly backs away.
- eBay's stock price: If shares drift back toward pre-bid levels, pressure on the board to engage with Cohen could increase.
- GameStop's next move: Cohen has a $35 billion incentive to boost GameStop's market cap. If eBay doesn't work, expect him to try something else, possibly equally audacious.
But dismissing it entirely, and dismissing Cohen entirely, is a mistake.
The guy has built a multibillion-dollar company from scratch, turned around a dying retailer, and consistently found ways to profit from situations where everyone told him he was wrong. The eBay bid might be more performance than acquisition attempt. But the performance itself is creating real value, and real strategic options.
Wall Street loves to mock outsiders until they stop being outsiders. Cohen's been underestimated his entire career. Maybe this time really is different. Maybe the math really doesn't work and this whole thing collapses.
But I've learned something watching him over the years: betting against Ryan Cohen has been a losing trade more often than not.
What Do You Think?
I'm genuinely curious, am I giving Cohen too much credit? Is this bid actually as delusional as everyone says? Or do you see the same threads I'm seeing? Drop a comment below or hit me up on social media. I read every response, even the ones telling me I'm wrong. (Especially those, actually.)
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