Ryan Cohen says he by no means wished to be CEO of GameStop.
Instead, he says he desires of helming eBay and thinks he has an actual shot at attaining that objective, regardless of critics’ claims that the e-commerce big is past his attain.
“I’m going to continue doing whatever I need to do in order to buy the business,” the GameStop CEO informed Business Insider in a telephone interview on Friday. “I’m going to make myself CEO of both.”
Cohen shocked Wall Street earlier this week when he disclosed that GameStop had made an unsolicited bid of about $56 billion for eBay, which has a market worth greater than 3 times its dimension. He raised eyebrows once more on Monday when he appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” throughout which the hosts overtly doubted whether or not the corporate may afford eBay and responded to his remarks with exhalations and chuckles.
“I’m not sure whether their questions were sincere or not,” stated Cohen, including that he laid out a transparent rationalization of how he would finance a deal for eBay. “I don’t know what is so complicated for them to figure it out.”
A CNBC spokesperson stated the “Squawk Box” interview “speaks for itself.”
Cohen, whose “half cash, half stock” mantra describing the financing rapidly became a meme, stated GameStop has about $9 billion in money and that TD Bank had expressed confidence in inserting roughly $20 billion in debt. Together, he stated, would cowl the money portion of the bid. In the wake of his viral CNBC look, Cohen provided a extra detailed rationalization of his math, together with on TBPN.
“What we’re proposing is for existing shareholders to take half of their investment off the table, and that would be us providing them with $28 billion, which is like a 40% premium from when we started buying the stock,” he informed TBPN. “And then they would be getting roughly — I mean it depends on ultimately when the transaction closes — but they would be rolling the rest into the combined company of GameStop and eBay.”
When talking with Business Insider, Cohen advised the inventory part can be “earnings per share accretive” for GameStop shareholders as a result of he stated he may considerably improve eBay’s profitability by way of cost-cutting, making the mixed entities extra useful total.
A well-known playbook
In publicly criticizing eBay’s management and arguing he may do a greater job, Cohen borrowed from the playbook he used when he took over GameStop in 2021. A key distinction, although, is that eBay’s enterprise is way more healthy at the moment than GameStop’s was again then.
Cohen, who constructed his fortune because the cofounder of on-line pet-products retailer Chewy, informed Business Insider that eBay could possibly be in a good higher monetary place if it have been managed extra effectively.
“There’s a ton of fat that can be cut,” he stated, pointing to what he described as extreme working bills at an organization that carries no stock and whose working revenue has remained roughly flat for a decade regardless of broader e-commerce development.
EBay’s working revenue was $2.28 billion for 2025 in comparison with $2.2 billion for 2015. The firm accomplished its PayPal spinoff in 2015 and has offloaded different belongings within the final decade, together with promoting StubHub. The firm’s EBITDA margin, a profitability ratio measuring operational effectivity, was 24% for 2025.
Cohen additionally took purpose at eBay’s executives and administrators. He alleged they’d bought “hundreds of millions of dollars of stock” with out shopping for shares themselves.
“They’re not owners in the business. They’re just milking it,” he stated. “It’s simply a paycheck for them.”
Like different executives of publicly traded firms, Ebay’s management receives shares and inventory choices as a part of their compensation packages. A supply conversant in the matter stated firm insiders at present personal over $150 million in shares.
Further, Cohen criticized eBay’s company tradition, alleging that the corporate had change into too comfy and undisciplined underneath its present management.
EBay has publicly stated it’s reviewing Cohen’s bid.
A frugal ‘meme king’
Cohen, who has additionally pushed for change at Nordstrom and Bed Bath & Beyond, stated he would not take a wage if he grew to become CEO of eBay. He does not earn one at GameStop, although he has a $35 billion compensation bundle tied to hitting market cap and revenue milestones, which an eBay deal may assist unlock. He stated he pays his private assistant out of his personal pocket and that whoever GameStop hires for a not too long ago posted private project manager job can be compensated the identical method.
“I have not pulled a penny out of GameStop,” he stated.
Since unveiling his bid for eBay, Cohen has leaned into his message about frugality — and his “meme king” repute for publicity stunts — by itemizing private gadgets on the market on the platform. Those included one for a used pair of socks that drew bids of over $14,000. He stated the hassle is a honest a part of a broader push to assist finance the acquisition.
“I have a lot of spare stuff,” he stated.
In a quick follow-up name on Friday, Cohen expanded on his aspirations for main the merged firms.
“I did not want to be the CEO of GameStop. I want to be the CEO of eBay,” he stated. “I’m passionate about eBay. I believe in eBay’s business. I wasn’t passionate about GameStop. That’s the difference.”
Correction, May 9, 2026: An earlier model of this text misstated the 12 months Cohen took over GameStop. This story has additionally been up to date with details about eBay management inventory holdings and the corporate’s financials.