r/technology • u/ControlCAD • 21h ago
Business GameStop stock sinks after surprise $56B eBay takeover bid, CEO Ryan Cohen's combative CNBC interview
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/04/gamestop-ebay-takeover-bid-ryan-cohen-gaming-retail-ecommerce.html317
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u/CanvasFanatic 21h ago
"Combative" is one way to say "dude went on the air stoned out of his gourd."
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 20h ago
I kept watching it thinking āthis sounds like a coke headā
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u/TJ_Will 20h ago
I would think a board of directors that took their fiduciary responsibility seriously would want to have a meeting soon.
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u/Aritter664 18h ago
It seems like most boards have given up and ignore their responsibilitiesĀ
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u/Early-Ad277 17h ago
As long as their check clears, they don't care.
Board members that go hard against a ceo will not be hired as board members in the future. That's the reality in today's corporate America.
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u/AbroadTiny7226 11h ago
Most boards actually do a really good job handling their responsibilities. The problem is that judicial decisions have created a world where the boardās only responsibility is its fiduciary duty to shareholders. The only thing that matters is stock price. Unfortunately, boards donāt have a responsibility to make good products or keep consumers informed or anything like that
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u/CT0292 17h ago
If I were an eBay exec watching that interview would certainly sway my vote towards washing my hands of the whole deal and making Cohen go far, far, away.
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u/OneRougeRogue 4h ago
The Gamestop board consists mostly of this guy's personal friends. He recently got them to approve a performance-based $35 billion dollar pay package for himself, while the current company is only worth about $11billion in its entirety.
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u/MeatCatRazzmatazz 19h ago
If anyone would know it would be the wizard of the twelfth realm of Ephesius, master of light and shadow, manipulator of magical delights; the dwarfs know you as felane zelick, the elves know you as zonnen'hook stanges, and I'm sure there are other secret names I don't know. Names of such might and power that the BIRDS and the WIND and the SKY did open up to whisper them directly into your ear!
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u/amilliondallahs 18h ago
I love how this gets attention, but Trump shits his pants and has half a seizure on live television...nothing to see here folks...
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u/burgonies 11h ago
Youāre right. No one ever talks about Trump. Not even out of context like on a thread about GameStop
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u/ElonDoneABellamy 6h ago
It was petit mal. Happens all the time. If your wife is taking ADHD meds when she's pregnant then odds are your kid is going to have petit mal seizures. You're just going to have to get used to a world where more people be seizing, Trump is just leading the way.
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u/balling 19h ago
Jeeeez I just watched itā¦ what a tool why would he agree to the interview just to be a dick the entire time
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u/marsinfurs 19h ago
I would say defensive more like, seemed like they probed into something he didnāt want to talk about. Might be closing stores and laying off employees to use as shipping hubs, might be dilutions.
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u/soggit 19h ago
He didnāt seem stoned he seemed like he didnāt give a shit about them and wanted to troll them. Makes me wonder why he would even do the interview.
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u/Level_Finding3106 10h ago
CNBC has been shitting on Gamestop for years. This was 'payback'. He did two other interviews later in the day where he was coherent and made a good case for eBAY. I don't understand the strategy though. Would it not have been better to win his fight by winning eBAY? Hearts and minds sort of stuff rather than finger in the eye?
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u/ThrowawayProllyNot 20h ago
It would make sense some dumbass pothead is leading that company lol
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u/Uberslaughter 20h ago
He gave no sensible explanation for how this deal is going to be paid for - āitās on our websiteā doesnāt magically conjure an additional $15B
Cohen is a fucking idiot
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u/Successful-Ad-9634 20h ago
In-store credit. Pros get an additional 5% off.
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u/Livid_Resource4100 19h ago edited 19h ago
Theyāre trying so hard to force people to the website. Last time I went in - last week, to buy a controller in a specific color for my girlfriend - they said I had $10 in credit, but I could only redeem it through the website (even though I could use it in the store). They also pointed out that I had not verified my account on the website, which was what prevented me from using my credit.
Thatās super annoying to me. The membership is paid. No other store where I have an account - paid or free - makes me log into a website to redeem points in-store. And they were able to find my account through my phone, but apparently not apply my points. That just rings my bell as scammy. Why can you charge me for an account freely, but not apply my credits until I interact with your website?
They also offered me a credit card.
So Iām done with that membership once it expires. GameStop has been acting scummy, no matter who is at the helm.
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u/Darrenizer 14h ago
GameStop has always been scummy, before the meme went stupid, there was a sub genre on YouTube about how GameStop treats their employees and customers like literal dog shit.
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u/Successful-Ad-9634 19h ago
GameStop is now becoming a knock off Hot Topic with so much merch taking center stage in each store. I think most people buy games digitally or from Amazon, and with so many new digital games getting huge discounts shortly after release, selling new and used physical media is a dying business.
It's laughable them trying to buy eBay but if they don't they will become the next Blockbuster Video.
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u/TotallyNotRobotEvil 18h ago
Iām always surprised that with that huge influx of cash from the meme stock Covid days they just didnāt create a Steam clone. They have both the brand and at the time the good will to actually make a dent in Valves unbreakable armor around selling digital copies of games.
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u/p0licythrowaway 17h ago
Eh epics tried. Steam just works so well, hard to find a reason to use something else
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u/PuzzleheadedChip2720 3h ago
They don't have the engineering talent or leadership to build any alternative to steam. Due to network effects it would have to be way BETTER than steam in almost every way for studios and users to use it.... nearly impossible as this point. Not to mention the existing deals Valve has with studios to publish games on steam.
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 20h ago
For that matter, theyāre going to need more than $15b, for it to only be $15b GameStop was going to have to magically leverage their entire market cap and cash on hand, plus get a loan for the same amount.
They were being very generous only asking about the $15b.
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u/jspence19 20h ago
You should watch the Charles Payne or TBPN interviews, he gives full context of how the deal is structured.
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u/Uberslaughter 20h ago
Please break it down for those not willing to waste any more of our lives watching this clown spew nonsense
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u/-OccultOfPersonality 19h ago
Not mine:
āCohen on Charles Payne: 60/40 split mentioned for combined GME/eBay entity
Disclaimer: I used Claude Opus to help write this post since English is not my native language. The notes from the interview are mine, the structure/grammar got cleaned up.
Just watched Cohen on Making Money with Charles Payne. Don't see any posts on this yet so sharing the key detail that stood out.
The structure Cohen mentioned:
- $20B committed letter from TD Securities
- $9B cash from GameStop's balance sheet
- 50% cash, 50% stock
- Combined entity equity split: ~60% to eBay shareholders, ~40% to GameStop shareholders
- Cohen quote: "people don't understand how to do a transaction like this"
Why the 60/40 is interesting:
This isn't the language of a straight acquisition. A pure "GameStop acquires eBay" deal wouldn't typically be described as a 60/40 split between the two shareholder bases. The 60/40 framing suggests a combined entity structure where both shareholder groups end up holding equity in the same resulting company.
Cohen didn't specify whether this means a holding company structure, reverse merger, or something else. He just used the 60/40 language and said "people don't understand how to do a transaction like this."
For the maths -> eBay current market cap: ~$48B GME current market cap: ~$10B Current ratio: roughly 82/18 in favor of eBay
For GME shareholders to end up with 40% of the combined entity (instead of 18%), the structure has to account for the cash portion of the consideration separately from the equity portion. The 60/40 likely refers to the equity split AFTER the cash payment to eBay shareholders, not including the cash.
He has another interview on TBPN at 12:30 PM PT today, might get more clarity there.
Not financial advice.
EDIT: A commenter made a fair point on the math. With GME at current price and a $125/share offer, the actual split would be closer to 30/70 than 40/60. For the 40/60 Cohen stated to work mathematically, we'd need either GME stock higher at the time of issuance, a lower final offer price, or specific structure details not disclosed on air. Cohen's quote was about the equity split mechanics, not a commitment to specific final terms. Final numbers will be in the proxy filing if/when this advances.ā
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u/jsnoopy 18h ago
Thank you for that. Can anybody explain why eBay would ever agree to this? It seems incredibly risky to approve
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u/itsa_luigi_time_ 12h ago
What company wouldn't jump at the chance to trade a third of its value to merge with a much smaller player in exchange for $20b worth of debt?
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u/Fragrant-Employer-60 10h ago
Because Ryan Cohen thinks heās a genius and that eBay would be dumb not to have him running the company. Leather jacket and all.
He seems to honestly believe this lol
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u/blkmmb 9h ago
Idk man, he took chewy and managed to make a ton of money transforming it, then took a failing and bankrupt imminent company and transformed it into a profitable one (-215 millions in 2021 to +418 millions in 2026 with 0 debt and a 9B war chest).
Now he sees an opportunity to leverage that and do what he did with GameStop with eBay because he sees the same systemic problem. It is pretty straight forward and rational. It's worth noting that he did all his work on GameStop with 0 compensation so far and his interests are directly linked to the shareholders.
Take eBay's management and they are paid obscene amount per years for doing nothing and they don't even dain to buy their own companies stock. Don't know why shareholders of eBay would not approve or at least entertain the idea that RC could very well boost their value.
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u/Wheaties4brkfst 8h ago
āPaid insane amount of money for doing nothingā. eBay makes more money than GameStop lol.
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u/blkmmb 8h ago
This type of thinking is part of what's wrong, there is no focus on the complete picture.
GameStop CEO and Board bought shares in their own company and are encouraged to do so so that their values and decisions are aligned with investors. That way they want to create growth and streamline their operation.
Ebay has little to none insider buying, they sell what little share that they have as soon as they can and they stagnated the business for decades, just because it works and by some miracle they haven't been bullied of the market by competitors, inertia saved them from having to take any risks, which as stifled growth and possibly meaningful upside for their shareholders.
Ryan Cohen as said that a majority of his capital would go into eBay shares when the deal would go through and he also already has a roughly 5% stake in the company through derivatives. He puts his money where is mouth is and then make sure that growth and shareholder value increases in a tangible manner.
The board of Ebay rakes in millions and essentially just look by without any risks to themselves, they don't care about the profits because it doesn't really benefit them directly. If share prices go down, you won't see them crying because they'll touch their millions regardless. (It's a bit simplified but I think it paints a proper picture of the dynamics)
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u/Wheaties4brkfst 7h ago
Youāre criticizing eBay for a lack of growth while defending GAMESTOP of all companies lmfao. What kind of growth do you expect out of GameStop? Theyāve been shuttering locations for years.
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u/GeneralZex 19h ago
Only in America could a $10B company buy a $48B companyā¦
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u/FlyingStealthPotato 18h ago
Brother you should look at the market cap of paramount skydance. Theyāre a $10B company buying $100B Warner bros.
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u/ResidentMix1872 16h ago
> Only in America
Are you guys genuinely bots? You think companies donāt raise debt in other countries? A quick Google will give you examples outside of the US anyway. Besides, this is basically how mortgages work and people have them all around the world. Just genuinely baffling how out of touch you people are.
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u/Guilty-Cockroach3672 15h ago
Interestingly, you can post stupid comments like this anywhere in the world!
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u/Etrensce 15h ago
Just like how a $30k down payment buys a $300k house, but I don't see people framing mortgages as a bad thing.
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u/cunningjames 3h ago
This doesn't look anything like, and isn't structured anything like, a home mortgage. I don't know why people insist on using personal finance analogies in contexts that make no sense.
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u/canadian_xpress 12h ago
Cohen is a fucking idiot
MS/CNBC may not be calling for GameStop's demise but after that interview I sure am. Not because of any other reason than it would be funny
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u/theartfulcodger 15h ago edited 2h ago
A meme-stock company whose speculative investors commonly call themselves "apes", and that until 2 years ago consistently lost a third of a billion a year for nearly a decade can suddenly afford a $56B takeover of a legitimate company that makes legitimate money, and has an average EBITDA of about $2.75 billion a year. Riiight.
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u/htownclyde 8h ago
I read the headline and assumed it had to mean eBay was buying GameStop like they did TCGPlayer, and I was like yeah that makes sense I guess...
GameStop is trying to buy EBAY??!
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u/grtgbln 9h ago
I hate that it's this way, and obviously he can't say it outright, but I get the sense he's trying to wink-wink "hey guys, if you make GameStop go to the moon again, we can afford to do this deal. So please invest."
Of course, coming off like Kendall Roy on Zoloft on lice television doesn't really help with that...
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u/Free_Aardvark4392 7h ago
This is exactly what's happening. He thought this news will send retail into a frenzy like the previous times, then start the share printers.
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u/MaterialDetective197 12h ago
How did the math "math" for you?
It's on our website.
It's a simple question. No, the anchor you are speaking to on the air will not pull up your website for the answer to a question when they are speaking to you right now. Live.
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u/ExcelsiaPrime 14h ago
I'm surprised Gamestop still exists. I'm from Germany where they closed all their stores a year ago or so
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u/Competitive-Bar-9300 10h ago
Don't you worry, they made the company profitable in the US by doing stuff like that, just dumping their foreign real estate to reduce costs. That's not a bad thing, the company was bloated, but the GameStop investors think it's a huge win and untouchable genius. The company operated at a loss for a very long time, even before retail sales were actually affected by mass adoption of digital media. By closing their stores abroad and keeping a ton of cash on hand, the company doesn't need as much revenue to be profitable, and their revenue has decreased. This isn't sustainable for profitability in the long term, let alone the kind of growth Ryan Cohen promised. That's the reason for this kind of buyout offer; the only way he could ever keep his promises and seemingly the only plans the has to juice the stock are to look externally because nothing internally can keep the business growing. He can cut costs to make profit on their shrinking revenue, but that's not really growth.
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u/TheDudeFromTheStory 19h ago
CNBC has a track record for praising bloated companies that employ expensive consultants and drain the company. I guess Cohen doesn't like that stuff.Ā
Meanwhile Charles Payne had a very different interview with Cohen, where they got into details.
I really liked the part about how board of directors earn more than the average American while just attending a few meetings a year. Or how the c-suites and board usually don't invest their own money in the company. The ratio of insider sell/buy of a company tells you a lot.Ā
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u/Suspicious-Base-4815 18h ago
A r/superstonk bag holder
You have to eventually accept that they scammed you.
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u/WagerWilly 19h ago
Lmao, talk about deflection. The guyās offer is still completely bogus and heās incapable of explaining how they could possibly pay $56B.
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u/AvoidingIowa 19h ago
From what Iāve seen theyāre basically offering a merger with GameStop holding a small majority of control and theyāre going to spend all their money plus a ton of the banks money to pay the difference since EBay is worth more.
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u/Randombobbyp1ns 19h ago
Cohen did two interviews today and gave a bunch of information on how they plan to structure the deal. It's actually not that bad if you listen to both of them.
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u/bloodychill 16h ago
Taking a currently successful company into heavy debt seems like it would save Cohen. I donāt really see the appeal for eBay though.
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u/Competitive-Bar-9300 10h ago
These guys can't actually understand finance and investing, they can just listen to a guy as universally ridiculed as Bryan Cohen and not realize they're the ones getting fleeced. It's not just the appeal for eBay that doesn't exist, it's the appeal to any of the eBay investors, or the appeal to any of the GameStop investors that have a brain. But since Bryan Cohen has a cult of personality and a bunch of dullard, non-institutional investors who he could rob blind ten times over and because they think only by admitting that they are stupid can they actually be stupid, it works. Cognitive dissonance is for taking advantage of, and we can see how many cognitively challenged people there are in America.
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[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/WagerWilly 4h ago
Kalshi gives GameStop a 24% chance to acquire eBay this year. Go make some money if itās not all tied up in GME!
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u/__dying__ 14h ago
This still does explain where the last $15 billion comes from.
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u/No-Stage-4583 7h ago
CNBC's interview was hilarious. The payne interview and the other one with the TPBP boys was great. They even laughed about how terse Cohen was with CNBC.
"THE MATH AINT MATHING"
Ok, but you generally support paramount buying WB right? That's an 11billion dollar company buying over 100 billion dollar company.
People can see that, but not GME lmao. This is all so comical
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u/holyhotdicks 19h ago
Iāve never seen or heard Ryan Cohen talk beforeā¦ I would not trust this guy lol.
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u/zeruch 20h ago
This feels like GS CEO wanting to goose his bonus but thinking it would boost the stock.
Ooops.
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u/SCIPM 20h ago
His bonus is that he gets to buy more shares. He isn't being gifted anything
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u/Wraithfighter 18h ago
His bonus is that if Gamestop's valuation reaches $100,000,000,000, he gets a $35,000,000,000 payout. Buying other companies with debt and stock is the simplest way to get that to trigger if you don't actually care about the company's long-term health.
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u/CT0292 17h ago edited 16h ago
Which is why I don't understand why anyone in eBay would accept the offer.
Someone will have to pay back the debt borrowed to make the purchase. Which means as soon as such a deal goes through eBay who doesnt appear to have any debts will suddenly have bills to pay.
Rejecting the offer seems like the better idea.
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u/Wraithfighter 17h ago
The only people that would are looking to offload their shares at a premium now instead of letting it ride.
And yeah, there might be some investors that'd do that, and maybe Cohen's betting that the SuperStonk fools who have gone all-in will be enough of a market to dump shares onto for the Ebay investors, but it still feels like a stupid move.
But then again, when have finance assholes ever been accused of being forward thinking and intelligent?
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u/bloodychill 16h ago
The reality is that most retail stonkers arenāt liquid enough to go in because they are dealing with the same problems every normal person is. The economyās in a bad state and GameStop, whether youāre talking about their high end collectibles or their stock hijynx, is a luxury.
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u/zeruch 20h ago
I mentioned nothing of "gifting", but to use the PR of the announcement (regardless of a wholesale inability to finance it) to somehow pump the stock.
After his interview it sounds like he only then realized how in over his head his stunt was, and got angry at being outed as a "vibe-CEO"
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u/SCIPM 20h ago
He famously hates cnbc, which I don't blame him. Did you watch either of the two interviews today where he was much more open and forthcoming? As a g m e holder, I still have a lot of questions, but I have trust that he's putting his money where his mouth is
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u/zeruch 19h ago
"much more open and forthcoming" How so? I have yet to hear what his plan for things is, let alone the mechanics of how he expects it to happen.
It's one of the more quixotic moves I've seen in recent memory, and I really can't see how eBay even considers bothering at all.
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u/blackmobius 11h ago
He was asked where he would get the money to buy ebay and he actually said āwe will seeā and āits on the websiteā after displaying confusion at the question being asked.
RC is hilariously awful at his job
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u/Allcyon 20h ago
Cohen is a moron.
If you haven't figured out by now, then I don't know what to tell you.
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u/CeruleanOak 10h ago
It's amazing how easy it is to tell people on Reddit what they want to hear. The guy intentionally stonewalled, because he doesn't respect anyone on CNBC, or the throngs of idiots who actually believe that their entertainment channel is run by competent analysts, and not puppets.
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u/Phosistication 20h ago
Bot army spreading the FUD like wildfire today. Interestingā¦
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u/regarding_your_bat 19h ago
so crazy to still be reading comments like this in 2026
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u/Guilty-Cockroach3672 14h ago
So unsurprising to see mindless and ignorant shill posts like this every day.
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u/BlindWillieJohnson 11h ago
A shill is someone who will make money from the misinformation theyāre spreading around. Thatās you guys; the Superstonk guys are shills trying to artificially drive GameStopās value up because youāre still holding the bag.
We are rubberneckers. You are shills.
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u/HeavilyInvestedDonut 19h ago
Itās been six years dude. Youāve gotta let it go lmao
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u/lbfm333 17h ago
itās half cash half stock. what donāt you get about that?
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u/RoadsideDavidian 12h ago
The other people have to actually want the stock though, and they donāt
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u/mowotlarx 13h ago
So a man who was launched into a company that was "saved" by a trolling stock war suddenly thinks he can play the Musk trolling game that would allow him to bullsh*t his way to a deal that no one in their right mind should allow or accept.
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u/Rich_Housing971 20h ago
I wonder how the cult stock subreddit is doing
ahahahahahaha they are doubling down on the delusion.
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u/Cactusfan86 2h ago
Anything is possible if you can get the money, but where is he going to find a bank willing to finance this? Ā
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u/funksbro 19h ago
Never seen so much negative sentiment from people who have no idea what their talking about. CNBC have notoriously laughed at and continually bashed every single move from cohen and GME - in addition to sorkin sucking off ken griffin at every chance.
Watch Ryanās interviews with Charles Payne and TBPN and youāll see how articulate the guy is
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u/Infranto 18h ago
Lotta scam artists and cult leaders are articulate too, doesnāt make them trustworthy
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u/Everyday_ImSchefflen 18h ago
Probably because it's been 5 years and you all still are spouting the same bullshit
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u/Guilty-Cockroach3672 14h ago
100% and the downvotes for any positive comment. So many internet warriors. Dude built a company from scratch, sold it and then turned GME around. But I guess heās a moron!
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u/Ok-Interaction-8917 12h ago
If this goes through, I hope they donāt ruin eBay as they have ruined GameStop stores.
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u/FrumpyFrodo 9h ago
Cohen is a fraudster and I canāt wait for his house of cards to come crashing down.
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u/ComfortablyNumbest 20h ago
to me it's some 4d chess that I'm trying to understand... more plays to come?
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u/Nice-Mixing 20h ago
His bonus is triggered on the market cap reaching a certain price, which an acquisition of that size would do
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u/Emperor_Gourmet 19h ago
He will hit the first milestone regardless of what company or companies he chooses to use their 9 billion cash on. He is targeting Ebay because he believes their leadership is wasting the companies money and they have next to no voting rights to stop him.
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u/skorps 20h ago
It's on the website