GameStop, the struggling brick-and-mortar video game retailer with a market value of about $12 billion, wants to buy eBay, an e-commerce company worth about $46 billion.
This comes from a Wall Street Journal report which indicates that GameStop is quietly building a stake in eBay stock in preparation for a bid that could come by the end of this month.
The report does not suggest what an offer would look like or how it would be received, although a source speaking to The WSJ suggested that GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen could pitch the offer directly to eBay shareholders if company executives aren’t interested.
GameStop’s latest full-year 2025 earnings report shows the company’s sales at $3.6 billion, up from $3.8 billion the year before, and its operating profit is finally positive at $232.1 million after several years in the red, with the company reporting a 2024 operating loss of $26.2 million. Meanwhile, eBay, which just reported its first quarter 2026 results, reported revenue of $3.1 billion for the quarter, up 19% year-over-year. The company’s full-year 2025 revenue was $11.1 billion, up 8% from the previous year.
GameStop has struggled over the past decade, initially due to a broad decline in physical game sales across the industry amid the rise of digital, which only accelerated during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. What followed was several years of chaotic decision-making as several executives attempted to get the company back on track. In 2021, following a short squeeze in GameStop’s shares that sent it skyrocketing for several weeks, then-CEO George Sherman announced he would step down and Chewy founder Ryan Cohen joined the board. In 2022, GameStop launched an NFT marketplacethen closed it the following year. Then, in 2023, Cohen took over as CEO with plans to revitalize the ailing company, which took the form of massive reductions in staff and store locations, the sale of some international operations and complain about DEI for any reason. More recently, GameStop has been touting a “return” to physical and retro gamingincluding plans for “retro” sections in all of its U.S. stores this month. He also appears to be interested in purchasing large amounts of Bitcoin.
Today’s news follows Cohen’s comments earlier this year that he wanted GameStop to acquire a large company with the aim of increasing its market capitalization to $100 billion, a move that bring him 35 billion dollars. As absurd as it may seem for GameStop to take over a company much larger and seemingly less chaotic than it, Cohen seems ready to take a long, long shot. “At the end of the day, it’s either going to be great or totally, totally insane,” he said in January of a possible acquisition.
Cohen also there has long been a cult in the investment community, particularly among those who are interested in memestocksand its actions in the past have led to unexpected investment increases based solely on his own choices, or even just his social media posts. Who knows what effect even a whisper about GameStop’s acquisition of eBay will have on the stock prices of both companies?