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FULL INTERVIEW: GameStop’s Ryan Cohen on Why He’s Buying eBay
TL;DR
Cohen says he formally offered $125 per eBay share, half cash and half stock — he frames it as giving shareholders roughly $28 billion in cash plus upside in a combined GameStop-eBay company he believes could be worth far more under his leadership.
His core pitch is brutally simple: eBay is durable, under-managed, and massively overstaffed — he points to eBay’s $2+ billion in annual profit, $5.5 billion in operating expenses, and 11,500 employees on an $11 billion revenue base as evidence he could cut costs fast.
The strategic angle is GameStop’s 1,600 stores as an authentication network for collectibles — Cohen says items like trading cards, luxury goods, and even a Montblanc pen become much more trusted if sellers can use stores as physical verification points.
He thinks eBay is losing obvious ground in live commerce despite having 130 million users — his plan is not to rebuild demand from scratch, but to upgrade the product, tighten creator incentives, and plug into the creator ecosystem more aggressively.
Cohen repeatedly contrasts an owner’s mentality with what he calls ‘public utility’ management — he attacks board fees, lack of insider buying, bloated marketing, and slow corporate behavior, saying eBay has no urgency and that he wants to own and run it ‘forever.’
On AI, crypto, and digital goods, he’s selective rather than sweeping — he sees AI as useful for reducing selling friction and improving discovery, says eBay is only doing the ‘super easy stuff’ today, is bullish on digital marketplaces, and has no strong view yet on stablecoins.
The Breakdown
The offer lands: $125 a share, and yes, the ‘half cash, half stock’ line is real
Cohen opens by confirming he made an offer the day before: $125 per eBay share, split evenly between cash and stock. He jokes along with the hosts about the now-viral phrasing, but quickly makes the actual argument — shareholders would get about $28 billion in cash, a roughly 40% premium from where GameStop started buying, and roll the rest into a combined company he says would be stronger with him running eBay.
Why he wants eBay so badly: a stagnating giant that still prints money
He’s unusually direct: eBay has stagnated for a decade, still looks like 1995, and somehow keeps making over $2 billion a year. That resilience is exactly why he loves it — startup after startup has attacked categories on eBay with $100 million-plus behind them, and the platform is still standing.
The big vision: GameStop stores as eBay’s trust engine
Cohen’s most concrete synergy pitch is collectibles. He says GameStop’s 1,600 stores could instantly become authentication points for trading cards, luxury goods, and niche items where buyers worry about fakes, turning physical retail into a trust layer for eBay’s marketplace.
Live commerce is the obvious miss
When the hosts press on growth, he goes straight to live commerce. His view: eBay already has 130 million users, so the job isn’t buying attention — it’s improving the tech, making the UI feel competitive, and creating better incentives for creators to sell through the platform.
The cost-cutting case gets ruthless fast
This is where Cohen sounds most like Ryan Cohen: blunt, combative, and certain. He says GameStop cut SG&A by 47%, or $800 million, partly by nearly turning off marketing, and argues eBay could cut $2 billion across sales, marketing, and overhead because household-name brands don’t need giant spend just to exist.
Twitter, startups, and the fewer-people-more-speed philosophy
Asked whether Elon Musk’s Twitter playbook is an inspiration, Cohen says yes in principle: smaller teams move faster. He claims Twitter’s problems were more about advertisers conspiring against Musk than cost cuts, and uses that to reinforce his bigger point that large organizations slow innovation while leaner ones feel like startups.
AI, digital goods, and the annoying friction of selling on eBay
On AI, he’s not making grand futuristic claims — he says eBay is using it for the obvious stuff like generating listings, but the real problem is that selling still feels like a pain. He’s more animated on digital goods, citing personal experience buying Roblox items for his kids and running into fraud, which he sees as proof that the opportunity is there but poorly executed.
If the deal fails, he still wants in
Cohen says the goal is not activism for activism’s sake — he wants to own and run eBay, full stop. Still, if M&A doesn’t happen, he floats alternatives like board involvement or a partnership where GameStop stores authenticate eBay collectibles, and he closes by saying eBay’s lack of urgency is exactly why the company needs an owner-operator rather than more professional managers.
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