May 7, 2026
On Sunday, May 3, GameStop (NYSE: GME) announced it had made an unsolicited offer to acquire the global online marketplace eBay for roughly $55.5 billion (1). CNBC interviewed Gamestop CEO Ryan Cohen the following day, asking him to explain to the audience how GameStop could realistically afford to buy out and run eBay, which is a much larger company.
His answers came off as rude, awkward, defensive, and ultimately unhelpful. If Cohen was hoping to win over investors with his answers, he was in for a rude awakening. After, the gaming retailer's stock dropped over 10% after Cohen's interview on CNBC's news program Squawk Box (3).
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Here's why investors feel on edge after Cohen's interview.
Ryan Cohen won't explain the math behind acquiring eBay
In the Squawk Box interview, co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin asks for details on how GameStop would come up with the funds for the $55.5 billion bid.
"Half cash, half stock, but the details are on our website," Cohen answers (4).
Sorkin responds by laying out the math. Using rounded numbers, he explains that GameStop's market cap was around $11 billion, and it has about $9 billion in cash reserves. TD Securities has provided GameStop with a $20 billion financing letter (2). But this still leaves the company roughly $15 or $16 billion short of its bid.
Sorkin points out that even though TD's letter states that it's confident it could provide the $20 billion, it's not a locked-in deal.
"Yeah, we'll see what happens," Cohen says, eliciting an uncomfortable laugh from Sorkin (5).
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"I hear you. I understand that. I'm just trying to understand where the rest of the money would come from," Sorkin replies.
The interview continues, with Sorkin and co-anchor Becky Quick asking for basic details, and Cohen repeatedly saying that the bid will consist of half cash, half stocks, and that people can go to the website for details.
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Investors are skeptical that the deal could go through
In the interview, Cohen confirms that he didn't reach out to eBay before placing a bid publicly, and eBay hasn't explicitly stated that it wants to sell. When Sorkin asks why he didn't approach eBay directly, Cohen says, "For obvious reasons. eBay is a public company. There's all kinds of perverse financial incentives, from the board to the management team. So there's only one way to approach something like this (6)."
Sorkin also asks for evidence that Cohen knows how to run a larger consumer business such as eBay, the CEO became defensive.
"I don't know, I mean, didn't you guys call for GameStop's demise multiple times?" Cohen says to the CNBC host. "Like, it should have been dead by now. Well, look at our financial performance. Is it better than you guys anticipated? Because you guys said it was going to be doing really, really poorly, and it's actually doing OK (7)."
Analysts at Bernstein Private Wealth Management addressed the bid in a note to clients, stating that besides the two companies' overlap in games and collectibles, the reasoning behind GameStop wanting to buy eBay is hazy. The firm also said that, overall, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone has done a good job executing new strategies (8).
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"Why disrupt things?" Bernstein analysts wrote. "The turnaround is working (9)."
How GameStop stock has reacted to the interview
On Friday, May 1, GameStop stock closed at $26.53 per share (10). Cohen gave the CNBC interview on Monday, May 4, and the stock fell by over 10% on Monday (11).
The stock fell a little lower on Tuesday before creeping back up on Wednesday. Shares are selling for less than before the interview, but the stock reached over $25 on Wednesday. This is still an improvement from the beginning of 2026, when it hovered around $20 per share (12).
GameStop's stock performance this week serves as a reminder that investors should be wary of panic-selling when a stock price dips. If you hold GameStop shares in your portfolio and saw values plunge by over 10% on Monday, you may have been worried. But it only took a few days for the stock to begin recovering.
Whether Gamestop stock fully recovers or shows signs of longer-term issues may be something investors are monitoring, but the dip in price highlights how a CEO's perceived competency and long-term plans can impact a public company's stock price.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
GameStop Investor Relations (1),(2); Yahoo Finance (3),(10),(11),(12); YouTube (4),(5),(6),(7); CNBC (8),(9)
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Laura Grace Tarpley is a contributing reporter for Moneywise who has been covering personal finance and working in digital media for 10 years. Her expertise spans banking, investing, retirement, loans, mortgages, and taxes.
