Ryan Cohen, the “rebel CEO” behind GameStop, didn't mince his words when eBay rejected his audacious $56 billion hostile bid earlier this month – slamming the global e-commerce player as a “literally obese” organisation “run by losers”. Indeed, for Ryan Cohen, the rejection is just the preliminary salvo of what might turn out to be a protracted war, says the Financial Times.
Despite multiple unanswered questions about how GameStop, which is valued at roughly $11 billion, could realistically finance the takeover of a company worth about $47 billion, he remains unabashed. “The more [eBay] fight me, the more… I'm not going to take no for an answer.”
It's that kind of fighting talk that has made the 40-year-old Canadian entrepreneur turned activist investor a “cult-like figure” among followers, who dub him the “Meme King”. Cohen's schtick has always been betting on ideas that many institutional investors thought absurd. First, it was online pet supplies (Chewy); then a dying strip mall video-game retailer (GameStop). Cohen has “cultivated this mystique – often communicating cryptically on social media with deliberately vague messages that retail traders try to dissect”.
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Indeed, his pursuit of eBay has been a textbook case in how to rally the modern crowd, says Time. As well as issuing and selling new shares to GameStop's enthusiastic investors and putting the proceeds towards his war chest, he has “doubled down on his theatrics, announcing in an X post that he was selling stuff on eBay to pay for eBay”. Fans buying up collectables and GameStop merchandise on the site raised about $169,000, says Business Insider. That's “a drop in the bucket” of what Cohen needs to finance his bid. But the value of the publicity was priceless. It's a measure of his “market-moving power” that traders on betting platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are still willing to place real-money wagers on GameStop's success, says Time.
Ryan Cohen didn't go to college, but as a teenager taught himself coding and cut his business teeth designing websites for his father's business and other family friends, says The New York Times. In 2011, Cohen founded an online pet-goods retailer, Chewy, convinced he could fill a gap in the market because of “the substandard service” provided by big pet retailers, says Fortune. One hundred investors rejected the idea, convinced he could never compete with Amazon and citing the demise of Pets.com in the early 2000s as a cautionary tale. But his determination and outstanding customer service paid off. Chewy became such a thorn in the side of PetSmart that it acquired it for $3.3 billion in 2017.
What Ryan Cohen plans to do next
In 2019, Ryan Cohen founded RC Ventures to take advantage of the burgeoning “meme stock frenzy”. He made about $56 n/m after taking a 10% stake in ailing retailer Bed Bath & Beyond and flipping it the same year, cementing a 56% gain. Then in 2021 he bought a stake in GameStop and became CEO in 2023. Cohen has big plans, says The Wall Street Journal. His chutzpah attracted Michael Burry, the investor made famous by the film The Big Short, who bought into his vision of using GameStop's giant cash holdings to make transformative acquisitions.
Perhaps the biggest blow to Cohen's pursuit of eBay is that Burry has dropped out, nervous about the debt needed to make it happen. Cohen's plan is to drive up eBay's operating margins to 40% and double down on high-value markets such as collectables and luxury goods, leveraging GameStop stores as fulfilment hubs. “Analysts remain unconvinced,” says the FT. But if successful in his “boldest gamble yet”, Cohen will lead “the first major meme-stock-driven deal”. For the moment, he's enjoying the ride. “It's fun. It makes me feel alive.”
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