The absurdly stupid attempt of Gamestop to buy Ebay

On Sunday May 3, 2026, GameStop (NYSE: GME) submitted an unsolicited, non-binding offer to acquire eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) for $125 per share, half cash and half stock, valuing eBay at roughly $55.5 billion. That is about 4x GameStop's pre-bid market cap of ~$12B versus eBay's ~$46B. CEO Ryan Cohen would run the combined company and pitched it to the WSJ as a "legit competitor to Amazon."

Markets aren't buying it: GME dropped roughly 8-10% on the news while EBAY climbed to ~$109, well below the $125 offer, and Kalshi traders give the deal a 26% chance and Polymarket 15%.

What's the offer?

Direct from the 8-K and offer letter:

Price: $125/share, 50% cash and 50% GameStop common stock, with election rights and pro-rata allocation
Aggregate equity value: ~$55.5B based on eBay's undiluted share count
GME's existing stake: 5% economic, mostly through derivatives (25,000 outright shares plus exposure to ~22.2M shares via put/call pairs)
Filings: Schedule 13D and HSR notification filed May 4
Financing: ~$9.4B from GameStop's balance sheet plus a highly-confident letter from TD Securities for up to $20B of debt
Cohen's terms if he takes over: no salary, no cash bonus, no golden parachute, "compensated solely based on the performance of the combined company"
Cost-cut commitment: $2B in annualized costs within 12 months of close, broken out as $1.2B from Sales & Marketing, $300M from Product Development, $500M from G&A

The "strategic" rationale

Gamestop CEO Ryan Cohen gave the following rationale in a letter to Ebay:

Cost: Cohen says eBay spent $2.4B on Sales and Marketing in 2025, and added only 1 million net active buyers (134M to 135M). Cohen says he will take $2B out of annualized costs and touts his own record, saying since 2021 GameStop has gone from a $381 million net loss to $418 million of net income
Physical network. GameStop pitches its ~1,600 US retail stores as a ready-made authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live-commerce footprint that pure-play e-comm rivals can't replicate. Cohen told the WSJ the combined company "could be a legit competitor to Amazon."

My thoughts

Overall, I think this is 90% bullshit.

I think that Mr. Cohen is attempting to make his stock a meme stock again and get it back into the conversation

In a hilariously awkward interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Mr. Cohen couldn't square even the easiest of follow ups questions... like "this math doesn't work".... pitiful.

There is a collectibles overlap between the two companies. eBay owns TCGPlayer (acquired 2024) and Goldin Auctions, and collectibles were 33.1% of GameStop's Q4 net sales and grew 47.7% in fiscal 2025.

This is another example of "show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome". Mr. Cohen's biggest shot to make a lot of money as CEO of GameStop is to get the market capitalization to $100B. In the event that happens, he will make $35B. That's what he's running towards.

But yeah, these aren't serious people. Another sign of the froth.