eBay Rejects GameStop's $56 Billion Takeover Bid, Calling It "Neither Credible Nor Attractive"

eBay has rejected a roughly $56 billion acquisition offer from GameStop, dismissing the bid as "neither credible nor attractive," according to market sources reported on May 12. The rejection sets the stage for a potential proxy battle after GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen signaled he is prepared to take the proposal directly to eBay shareholders if the board refuses to engage. How the bid came together GameStop made its offer on May 4, proposing to acquire eBay at $125 per share in a combination of cash and stock — a price that valued the e-commerce giant at approximately $56 billion. Cohen disclosed that GameStop already held around 5% of eBay's outstanding shares at the time of the offer, giving the company an existing stake in the target it was bidding for. The $125 per share offer represented a meaningful premium to eBay's trading price, and Cohen's public disclosure of GameStop's existing stake was a clear signal that the approach was not a casual inquiry — it was a calculated opening move in what he was prepared to make a prolonged campaign if necessary. eBay's rejection and what comes next eBay's board moved quickly to reject the offer, characterizing it in blunt terms as lacking both credibility and attractiveness. The dismissal leaves Cohen with a decision to make: walk away or escalate. Based on his stated position ahead of the rejection, escalation appears to be the more likely path. Cohen had already made clear that if eBay's board declined the offer, he was prepared to launch a proxy fight — a process through which GameStop would campaign directly to eBay's shareholders to either force a vote on the acquisition or push for board-level changes that would make a transaction more likely. With GameStop holding approximately 5% of eBay shares, Cohen has a meaningful platform from which to build that case to other investors. Proxy fights at this scale are expensive, time-consuming, and uncertain in outcome. But Cohen has a track record of using aggressive shareholder activism to force corporate change — most notably at GameStop itself — which makes the threat more credible than it might be coming from another acquirer. The broader context The bid represents an unusual move for GameStop, a company that has spent the past several years rebuilding its balance sheet and pivoting away from its brick-and-mortar retail roots. An acquisition of eBay at $56 billion would be transformational in scale — eBay's marketplace business would dwarf GameStop's current operations — and the financing structure of a cash-and-stock deal raises questions about how GameStop would fund and integrate an acquisition of that magnitude. Those are likely among the reasons eBay's board felt comfortable rejecting the offer as not credible. Whether shareholders agree with that assessment — or whether Cohen can assemble enough support to force a different outcome — is the question that will drive this story forward.