GameStop Now Owns 10% of eBay and Ryan Cohen Says He’s Not Done
GameStop has nearly doubled its stake in eBay to 9.8%, making it the online marketplace's largest shareholder and escalating a takeover battle that eBay's board has already rejected once. According to an SEC filing disclosed July 18, GameStop now holds more than 43 million eBay shares, built through a combination of open market purchases and the conversion of put/call option pairs.
The path to this position started in May, when GameStop revealed a 5% stake and an unsolicited $56 billion offer to acquire eBay at $125 per share in a cash-and-stock deal. eBay's board rejected the bid within days, calling it “neither credible nor attractive.” Since then, GameStop has not retreated. It has continued buying.
How the Stake Was Built
The latest SEC filing shows two distinct tranches of accumulation. GameStop purchased approximately 3.5 million additional shares between June 8 and June 15 for roughly $381 million. It then converted 39 million shares from put/call pairs that settled on July 17, bringing the total to 43.4 million shares representing 9.8% of eBay's outstanding stock.
The initial May offer of $56 billion valued eBay at roughly $125 per share, a 20% premium to eBay's price at the time of announcement and a 46% premium to where eBay traded in February when GameStop first started building its position. eBay's market value at the time of the original bid was roughly $46 billion, while GameStop's was just under $12 billion, making this a smaller company attempting to absorb a target roughly five times its own size.
What Cohen Has Said
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen has been unusually public about his intentions, recording interview transcripts in SEC filings and speaking to Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and other outlets in recent weeks. His position is consistent across every appearance.
In a Bloomberg TV interview on July 16, Cohen declined to say whether GameStop would raise its $56 billion offer. “I'm not going to negotiate against myself,” he said. But he was unambiguous about the broader intention: “I'm not going to call my shots, but we're coming for eBay one way or another.” He added that if eBay's management and board continue refusing to engage, he will take the case directly to eBay's shareholders, who are the ultimate owners of the business.
Cohen's strategic vision for a combined entity is ambitious. He has described a business that would use GameStop's physical store network as nodes for eBay's marketplace and live commerce offerings, and has projected that a merged company could become a $1 trillion business by leveraging the complementary strengths of gaming, collectibles, and digital commerce. He has framed it explicitly as a challenge to Amazon.
GameStop shareholders took a concrete step to enable a potential deal earlier this month, approving a significant increase in the company's authorized share count, a move widely interpreted as preparation for the stock component of any eventual eBay acquisition offer.
Why eBay's Board Is Holding Firm
eBay has not engaged with Cohen's overtures beyond its initial rejection, and its public posture is one of confidence in its existing strategy rather than anxiety about the pressure campaign. eBay's turnaround under CEO Jamie Iannone has focused on high-value categories like collectibles, refurbished goods, and authenticated luxury items, pulling the platform away from the commodity volume that Amazon dominates. eBay's market value has roughly tripled since Iannone took over.
The financing question remains the most significant obstacle to Cohen's credibility as a bidder. The offer structure is roughly half cash, half GameStop stock. GameStop has reported a conditional $20 billion financing commitment from undisclosed backers, but the identity of those backers and the conditions attached to that commitment have not been publicly disclosed, which is a primary reason eBay's board called the offer not credible. Hedge fund data adds context here: of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, those holding eBay positions had a total dollar value of $1.82 billion at the end of Q1 2026, down from $2.51 billion the quarter before. The funds holding GameStop saw their total value nearly double, but the holder count shrank, pointing to a smaller group of concentrated bettors rather than broad institutional conviction.
What This Means for Sellers
For sellers using eBay as a primary channel, the uncertainty around eBay's ownership is a background variable worth monitoring rather than something requiring immediate action. eBay is not changing hands tomorrow, and the platform's day-to-day operations are unaffected by the takeover campaign.
The more relevant question is what a GameStop-controlled eBay would mean for the seller experience if the deal ever closed. Cohen's vision of integrating physical GameStop locations into eBay's marketplace would primarily benefit collectibles and gaming categories where in-person inspection and local pickup have real consumer appeal. For sellers in other categories, the strategic case for the combination is less obvious.
What is clear is that Cohen is eBay's largest individual shareholder at 9.8% and intends to keep the pressure on. Whether that ultimately produces a deal, a share price increase that he exits into, or a protracted proxy battle, remains an open question. But his statement that he is “coming for eBay one way or another” is the kind of language that forces a board to pay attention regardless of whether the initial offer was credible.
