Ryan Cohen says he never wanted to be CEO of GameStop.
Instead, he says he dreams of helming eBay and thinks he has a real shot at achieving that goal, despite critics’ claims that the e-commerce giant is beyond his reach.
“I’m going to continue doing whatever I need to do in order to buy the business,” the GameStop CEO told Business Insider in a phone interview on Friday. “I’m going to make myself CEO of both.”
Cohen surprised 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 value more than three times its size. He raised eyebrows again on Monday when he appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” during which the hosts openly doubted whether the company could afford eBay and responded to his remarks with exhalations and chuckles.
“I’m not sure whether their questions were sincere or not,” said Cohen, adding that he laid out a clear explanation 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 said the “Squawk Box” interview “speaks for itself.”
Cohen, whose “half cash, half stock” mantra describing the financing quickly became a meme, said GameStop has about $9 billion in cash and that TD Bank had expressed confidence in placing roughly $20 billion in debt. Together, he said, would cover the cash portion of the bid. In the wake of his viral CNBC appearance, Cohen offered a more detailed explanation of his math, including 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 told 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 speaking with Business Insider, Cohen suggested the stock component would be “earnings per share accretive” for GameStop shareholders because he said he could significantly increase eBay’s profitability through cost-cutting, making the combined entities more valuable overall.
A familiar playbook
In publicly criticizing eBay’s leadership and arguing he could do a better job, Cohen borrowed from the playbook he used when he took over GameStop in 2021. A key difference, though, is that eBay’s business is much healthier today than GameStop’s was back then.
Cohen, who built his fortune as the cofounder of online pet-products retailer Chewy, told Business Insider that eBay could be in an even better financial position if it were managed more efficiently.
“There’s a ton of fat that can be cut,” he said, pointing to what he described as excessive operating expenses at a company that carries no inventory and whose operating income has remained roughly flat for a decade despite broader e-commerce growth.
EBay’s operating income was $2.28 billion for 2025 compared to $2.2 billion for 2015. The company completed its PayPal spinoff in 2015 and has offloaded other assets in the last decade, including selling StubHub. The company’s EBITDA margin, a profitability ratio measuring operational efficiency, was 24% for 2025.
Cohen also took aim at eBay’s executives and directors. He alleged they had sold “hundreds of millions of dollars of stock” without buying shares themselves.
“They’re not owners in the business. They’re just milking it,” he said. “It’s simply a paycheck for them.”
Like other executives of publicly traded companies, Ebay’s leadership receives shares and stock options as part of their compensation packages. A source familiar with the matter said company insiders currently own over $150 million in shares.
Further, Cohen criticized eBay’s corporate culture, alleging that the company had become too comfortable and undisciplined under its current leadership.
EBay has publicly said it is reviewing Cohen’s bid.
A frugal ‘meme king’
Cohen, who has also pushed for change at Nordstrom and Bed Bath & Beyond, said he wouldn’t take a salary if he became CEO of eBay. He doesn’t earn one at GameStop, though he has a $35 billion compensation package tied to hitting market cap and profit milestones, which an eBay deal could help unlock. He said he pays his personal assistant out of his own pocket and that whoever GameStop hires for a recently posted private project manager job would be compensated the same way.
“I have not pulled a penny out of GameStop,” he said.
Since unveiling his bid for eBay, Cohen has leaned into his message about frugality — and his “meme king” reputation for publicity stunts — by listing personal items for sale on the platform. Those included one for a used pair of socks that drew bids of over $14,000. He said the effort is a sincere part of a broader push to help finance the acquisition.
“I have a lot of spare stuff,” he said.
In a brief follow-up call on Friday, Cohen expanded on his aspirations for leading the merged companies.
“I did not want to be the CEO of GameStop. I want to be the CEO of eBay,” he said. “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 version of this article misstated the year Cohen took over GameStop. This story has also been updated with information about eBay leadership stock holdings and the company’s financials.
