EBay permanently bans GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen for putting its community 'at risk' following takeover attempt

By Weston Blasi

The GameStop chief, who proposed acquiring eBay for $55.5 billion Monday, was selling GameStop-related merchandise through his account

A GameStop store is seen in the Barton Creek Square shopping mall in Austin, Texas.

It looks like nobody will be able to buy Ryan Cohen's socks for $14,000.

Cohen, the CEO of GameStop (GME), posted on X on Wednesday night that his eBay (EBAY) account has been permanently suspended because the platform said it put "the eBay community at risk."

The above eBay account that Cohen claims is his had 36 items listed on it, including PSA-graded sports trading cards (meaning they've been verified as authentic) and some videogame collectibles. But it also listed GameStop-related merchandise - such as a GameStop mug for over $3,000, a GameStop mousepad for over $1,500, and what looked to be a used pair of socks for over $14,000. And people were bidding on those items, too, before Cohen was banned.

Now, Cohen's account will no longer will able to buy and sell items, and bids on those items have been cancelled.

The tit-for-tat with eBay comes after GameStop launched a $55.5 billion bid to acquire eBay earlier this week. The proposed offer is for $125 per share, and comprised of 50% cash and 50% GameStop common stock.

See: Introducing the 'NACHO' trade: How Wall Street is betting on higher oil prices and persistent inflation

EBay subequently confirmed that it had received the offer.

"The Board will review this proposal with a focus on the value to be delivered to eBay shareholders, including the value of the GameStop stock consideration and the ability of GameStop to deliver a binding, actionable proposal," eBay wrote in a statement after the proposal was made.

Neither eBay nor Cohen responded to requests for comment.

Cohen gave an awkward, now-viral interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" about the takeover attempt on Monday, after the TV show's hosts questioned how GameStop could finance the proposal considering the videogame retailer has a market capitalization of just under $11.9 billion.

Of course, its not unheard of for smaller companies to take over larger ones. In one recent example, Paramount Skydance (PSKY), which has a market cap of around $12 billion, struck an agreement to take over the much larger Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) for about $110 billion.

In another TV interview this week, Cohen discussed the potential of cutting the e-commerce platform's workforce if his bid was successful.

"There's 11,500 employees. It doesn't make sense," he said on the TBPN podcast. "I could run that business from my house. It's eBay, it looks the same as it did in 1995. It doesn't need 11,500 employees."

He added that "eBay is not happy with me."

Some on social media have called Cohen's TV antics a stunt, while others have applauded it as genius marketing.

But Wall Street analysts have voiced skepticism about the viability of the proposed transaction. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian wrote in a Monday note that there is a "relatively low probability of success."

Cohen has been leading GameStop since 2023, a few years after the initial meme-stock craze the took the company's stock price to new heights. He also founded the online pet-products retaler Chewy (CHWY).

Shares of GameStop are up over 20% this year to date.

Read more: GameStop launches a $56 billion bid for eBay - but the math isn't working out

-Weston Blasi

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05-10-26 0823ET