Who Is Ryan Cohen? College Dropout Billionaire Trying To Buy eBay For $56 Billion

Ryan Cohen has said that he was prepared to take the bid directly to shareholders if eBay's board were unreceptive.

07 May 2026, 04:40 · www.ndtv.com

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Ryan Cohen offered $56 billion to buy eBay at $125 per share in cash and stock
Cohen built Chewy, turned GameStop profitable, and now aims to transform eBay
GameStop owns 5% of eBay and secured $20 billion debt financing for the bid

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Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop, has made an unsolicited and nonbinding bid to buy eBay for $56 billion. In a letter to eBay's board, Cohen said that the offer includes paying $125 a share in a 50-50 mix of cash and stock. The bold bid has triggered a social media hype, with users asking about this billionaire, who didn't even complete college.

Who is Ryan Cohen?

He is originally from Montreal, Canada. The 40-year-old entrepreneur, now worth an estimated $4.2 billion, took an unconventional path to the boardroom as he skipped college entirely. He dropped out of Rowan University after one semester. Instead of a degree, he built Chewy and sold it to PetSmart for $3.35 billion in 2017. He later became the face of the GameStop meme-stock revival.

Under Cohen, GameStop went from a $381 million net loss to $418 million net income, the New York Times reported. A total of 470 US stores in early 2026, and pivoted hard into trading cards and collectables.

Now he wants to run eBay, a company four times larger than GameStop, and turn it into "a legit competitor to Amazon".

The $56 Billion Bid That Shocked Wall Street

On Sunday (May 3), GameStop proposed to acquire eBay for $125 per share in cash and stock, a 20% premium to eBay's Friday close. The deal values eBay at about $55.5-$56 billion.

GameStop has already built a 5% stake in eBay since February and secured a "highly confident letter" from TD Bank to provide $20 billion in debt financing, CNBC reported.

The rest would be half cash, half GameStop stock, with existing shareholders rolling equity into the combined company.

"I'm going to be as focused on eBay and as personally involved as I have been in the GameStop turnaround for the next few years," Cohen told The Wall Street Journal.

"EBay should be worth - and will be worth - a lot more money. I'm thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars."

EBay's board said Monday it would review the offer. Shares popped 6% to a record $109.33, but remain well below the $125 bid, signalling investor scepticism.

On the other hand, GameStop fell 10%.

However, there are several hurdles, as GameStop's market cap is around $11 billion in comparison to eBay's $46 billion. Michael Burry, who helped spark GameStop's 2021 rally, sold his entire position Monday, citing debt concerns.

Also on the TBPN podcast, Cohen acknowledged that "eBay is not happy" with him, noting the board didn't like his critiques of director fees.

"I could run that business from my house," Cohen said of eBay. "It's eBay - it looks the same as it did in 1995. It doesn't need 11-and-a-half thousand employees." He pledged to cut $2 billion in annual costs within 12 months by slashing marketing, product development, and overhead.

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