GameStop makes $56 billion offer to acquire eBay

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Follow Follow See All News GameStop makes $56 billion offer to acquire eBay The unsolicited offer is part of GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s plans to turn eBay into a rival to Amazon. The unsolicited offer is part of GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s plans to turn eBay into a rival to Amazon. by Emma Roth Close Emma Roth News Writer Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

Follow Follow See All by Emma Roth May 4, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC Link Share Gift Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Emma Roth Close Emma Roth Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

GameStop has made an offer to acquire eBay for $56 billion, which comes as part of GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s plan to transform the online marketplace into a “legit competitor to Amazon,” he tells The Wall Street Journal . In an announcement on Monday , eBay says it will “carefully review” the unsolicited proposal, adding that it had “no discussions with or outreach from GameStop” before receiving the bid. GameStop says it will fund the acquisition using $9.

4 billion on the company’s balance sheet and third-party financing, including up to $20 billion from TD Securities. As noted by the WSJ , the company doesn’t say how it will fund the rest of the acquisition, but sources tell the outlet that “Cohen could tap outside investors, such as Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds, to back the deal. ” The WSJ reports that Cohen is ready to launch a proxy fight to acquire eBay if the company doesn’t accept its offer.

Industry Implications

Cohen has a pretty big incentive to grow GameStop, which was at the center of the memestock craze in 2021 . Under his new compensation package , Cohen could make as much as $35 billion if the company meets certain financial goals, such as reaching a market capitalization of $100 billion, as reported by the WSJ . “eBay should be worth — and will be worth — a lot more money,” Cohen told the WSJ .

“I’m thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars. ” Over the past year, GameStop closed more than 700 stores across the US as spending on physical games continued to dip. As of January 2026, GameStop has 1,598 stores left in the US.

Even with GameStop’s attempts to offset this shift by focusing on trading cards and collectibles , the company’s revenue sank 14 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.