eBay Rejects GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen's $56 Billion Offer to Buy the Company, Calls It 'Neither Credible nor Attractive'

eBay has officially rejected GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s $56 cardinal connection to bargain the company.

The eBay Board of Directors said it had rejected GameStop’s unsolicited connection pursuing a “thorough reappraisal with the enactment of its fiscal and ineligible advisors.”

Cohen had said that if eBay’s Board rejected his offer, helium would instrumentality it straight to shareholders, insisting: “There is cipher who is much qualified, based connected my experience, to tally the eBay business.”

In a effect missive to Cohen, published successful afloat below, eBay president Paul Pressler said the connection “is neither credible nor attractive.”

Dear Mr. Cohen,The Board, with the enactment of its autarkic advisors, has thoroughly reviewed your connection and has determined to cull it.We person concluded that your connection is neither credible nor attractive. We person taken into relationship specified factors arsenic 1) eBay's standalone prospects, 2) the uncertainty regarding your financing proposal, 3) the interaction of your connection connected eBay's semipermanent maturation and profitability, 4) the leverage, operational risks, and enactment operation of a combined entity, 5) the resulting implications of these factors connected valuation, and 6) GameStop's governance and enforcement incentives.eBay is simply a strong, resilient concern that has delivered meaningful results implicit the past respective years. We person sharpened our strategical focus, strengthened execution, enhanced our marketplace and seller experience, and consistently returned superior to shareholders. With its differentiated planetary marketplace and a wide strategy, eBay's Board is assured that the company, nether its existent absorption team, is well-positioned to proceed to thrust sustainable growth, execute with discipline, and present semipermanent worth for our shareholders.Our squad remains focused connected executing our strategy and driving our concern guardant successful the champion interests of the company, our shareholders, our employees, and millions of buyers and sellers astir the world.Sincerely,/s/ Paul S. PresslerPaul S. Pressler
Chairman of the Board of Directors, eBay

Earlier successful May, 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 company, said helium wanted 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 has said eBay isn’t making capable wealth for what it’s spending, and that it would present $2 cardinal of annualized outgo reductions wrong 12 months of closing the deal, suggesting plans for important cuts. GameStop said its 1,600 U.S. retail locations “give eBay a nationalist web for authentication, intake, fulfillment, and unrecorded commerce,” confirming plans to bring the eBay concern into its stores. Cohen told The Wall Street Journal helium would marque GameStop stores locations to cod and authenticate items from eBay sellers. "GameStop unit already inspect and people hardware and trading cards each day," GameStop said erstwhile it announced the bid to bargain eBay. "Sellers locomotion in, items are verified connected the spot, and listings transportation a spot badge."

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. But successful a bizarre caller 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.

“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.” The proposition was that the projected woody could necessitate important stock issuances that would massively dilute existing shareholders. 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.

Then, successful a publicity stunt, Cohen said helium was “selling worldly connected eBay to wage for eBay,” listing everything from shot cards to a brace of socks. Each listing includes a hand-signed 'Letter to eBay' arsenic a "THANK YOU for your support." Cohen has spent the past week dumping connected eBay connected societal media, tweeting astir its fiscal performance, the societal media enactment of an eBay committee member, and erstwhile controversies, presumably successful a bid to presumption himself arsenic the company's savior.

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 dumped his full involvement successful GameStop aft the company’s audacious bid for eBay, 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.

Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

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