GameStop Makes Unsolicited $55.5 Billion Offer to Acquire eBay in Bid to Rival Amazon

GameStop announced Sunday it has made an unsolicited, non-binding offer to acquire eBay for $125 per share in a cash-and-stock deal, valuing the e-commerce platform at roughly $55.5 billion — a move that would transform the video game retailer into one of the largest e-commerce operators in the United States.

The offer represents a 20% premium to eBay's Friday closing price of $104.07, and a 46% premium to eBay's closing price on February 4, when GameStop began building a stake in the company, according to a statement from GameStop.

The deal is structured as an even split between cash and GameStop common stock. GameStop has secured a commitment letter from TD Bank for up to $20 billion in debt financing, with the remainder to come from its approximately $9.4 billion cash pile.

Shares of eBay surged as much as 13.4% in after-hours trading to around $118 — well below the $125 offer price, a gap that signals investor skepticism about whether the deal will close. GameStop shares rose around 4% to $27.6.

GameStop Chief Executive Ryan Cohen told the Wall Street Journal that his ambition extends well beyond the current offer. "EBay should be worth — and will be worth — a lot more money," Cohen said. "I'm thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars."

Should the acquisition close, Cohen is expected to serve as chief executive of the combined company, according to GameStop's statement.

The proposal faces significant structural hurdles. GameStop's market capitalization stood at roughly $11 billion before the announcement, while eBay was valued at approximately $46 billion as of Friday, according to LSEG data — making GameStop a buyer pursuing a target roughly four times its own size. The deal requires approval from eBay's board, regulators, and shareholders of both companies. EBay did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cohen said he is prepared to take the offer directly to shareholders in a proxy fight if eBay's board declines to engage.

GameStop has built a roughly 5% stake in eBay ahead of the offer. In January, Cohen first signaled publicly that he intended to acquire a publicly traded consumer company larger than GameStop, describing the potential transaction as "transformational" and "never been done before within the history of the capital markets."

In the offer document, GameStop projected it would cut $2 billion in annual costs within one year, primarily targeting eBay's sales and marketing budget, which totaled $2.4 billion in fiscal 2025 while net active buyer growth remained flat at less than 0.75%. GameStop said those cost reductions alone would lift eBay's earnings per share under standard U.S. accounting rules to $7.79, up from $4.26.

GameStop also argued that its roughly 1,600 U.S. retail stores could serve as physical infrastructure for eBay's marketplace, supporting authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live commerce.

EBay's gross merchandise volume peaked at $100 billion in 2020 before sliding to $79.6 billion in 2025, as the platform lost ground to Amazon and a generation of specialized secondhand marketplaces.

Cohen built his reputation by founding Chewy, an online pet supply retailer sold to PetSmart for $3.35 billion in 2017. He later acquired a large GameStop stake, joined its board in January 2021 during the retail-trading frenzy that sent GameStop shares 1,500% higher in two weeks, and became CEO in September 2023, steering the company back to profitability through store closures and cost cuts.

Cohen's compensation structure, updated at the start of the year, includes stock options tied to market capitalization and earnings thresholds that could be worth more than $35 billion if GameStop reaches a $100 billion valuation and meets profit targets — giving him a direct financial incentive to pursue a deal of this scale.

Whether eBay's board treats the approach as credible or dismisses it outright is the immediate question; the answer is expected to shape the next phase of one of the more unconventional corporate takeover bids in recent memory.

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