GameStop CEO trying to buy eBay briefly banned on eBay, but that's not stopping him from attempting to sell garbage for thousands of dollars

Yesterday, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen said that he was "selling stuff on eBay" in order to fund his unbelievable bid to buy eBay. Soon after, he was suspended from the online auction site, albeit only temporarily. Either way, the whole ordeal has turned the proposed buyout from "a little weird" to "very laughable."

Earlier this week, Cohen announced an interest in buying eBay, proposing a $56 billion buyout that would install him as the boss of the combined company. The deal would be comprised of 50% GameStop stock – the Wall Street equivalent of in-store trade-in credit – and 50% cash, backed by a $20 billion commitment from TD Securities.

Where would the remaining cash come from? Maybe GameStop's own cash reserves, or a third-party investment fund, or someplace else. It seems nobody knows the answer for sure – not even Cohen himself. At least, that's the impression he gave in an interview with CNBC, where the hosts were so flummoxed by Cohen's inability or unwillingness to answer their questions that they seemed on the verge of laughter.

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On May 6, Cohen tweeted that he was "selling stuff on eBay to pay for eBay," providing a link to his account on the auction site. There were listed numerous mint condition retro games, graded sports cards, a pair of apparently dirty socks, and far more esoteric bits of memorabilia. Shortly afterward, he said he was "suspended from eBay," though I'd guess this was likely the result of the site's automated fraud detection algorithms.

After all, somebody listing piles of junk alongside genuine collectables, and seeing all of it instantly garner thousands of dollars worth of bids sure would seem suspicious to a fraud bot. Cohen's account is apparently back in good standing today, and the bids keep rolling in, pushing these items far beyond their market value. I don't know what a Mario Nascar hood is worth, but I can tell you that this complete in box copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 is worth maybe (maybe!) 10% of the $1,395 it's currently going for.

And there's some question about where those games have come from. GameStop once owned Game Informer, the long-running magazine that was unceremoniously shut down under Cohen's watch in 2024. The folks behind the magazine eventually revived it, free from GameStop's influence, but they did not manage to secure the vast library of games that were stored in Game Informer's original offices.

You may already see where this is going. Several former Game Informer employees, speaking to Kotaku, say that the games Cohen has listed on eBay match the specifics of those titles once stored in the magazine's offices.

"I'm very happy Game Informer is out from under GameStop, but choices like these remind people of the brutal closure of the magazine in 2024," Ben Hanson, former Game Informer employee turned MinnMax host, says in a statement to Kotaku. "Game Informer's history belongs in a museum, not some schmuck's eBay listings. Show some love to the current Game Informer crew, subscribe to the physical magazine, and please try to ignore Ryan Cohen’s pleas for attention."

I'm sure there are folks out there who've followed Cohen through the meme stock boom that find this all extremely funny, but for me? It's a little sad. Is the ultimate goal here genuinely to buy eBay? I'm no financial expert, but every bit of commentary I've seen suggests that the proposal is every bit as unrealistic as it seems. But hey, if GameStop stock has taught us anything about the financial market, it's that nothing is real and anything is possible.

Why and how a JRPG fan spent $2,000 building a GameStop in his basement: "The spaces combined with the passions in our lives have the power to bring people together."