US video games retailer GameStop has offered to buy eBay for $55.5bn (£41bn) in an unsolicited bid that its boss warned could turn hostile if the proposal is rebuffed by eBay’s board.

GameStop, which has quietly accumulated a 5% stake in eBay, said it was willing to pay $125 a share, split 50-50 between cash and stock.

It is an ambitious move by the games company, which catapulted to fame during the meme-stock craze of 2021 but is worth far less than its takeover target. GameStop had a market valuation of roughly $12bn on Friday before its bid, while eBay – originally launched as a side hobby by its founder Pierre Omidyar in 1995 – is worth about $46bn.

But Ryan Cohen, who has run GameStop since 2020, claims eBay could be worth much more under his leadership, saying in a letter to eBay chair Paul Pressler that he would immediately launch a cost-cutting programme that would slash $2bn worth of spending a year.

“Ebay should be worth – and will be worth – a lot more money,” Cohen told the Wall Street Journal.

“I’m thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars,” Cohen said, adding: “It could be a legit competitor to Amazon.”

Cohen, dubbed the “meme king” by retail traders and online followers, told the WSJ that he was prepared to take the offer directly to eBay shareholders, turning the bid hostile, if eBay’s board was not receptive to his proposal.

The offer is now backed by a $20bn bank loan from TD Securities, although Cohen could also turn to external investors including Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds for the deal, according to the report.

GameStop’s claim to fame came during the meme stock craze of 2021, when a meme-fuelled “revolution” in investing led to Gen Z and millennial investors piling into the stocks in a frenzy that came close to bankrupting a number of hedge funds.

Those investors sent GameStop shares up from $3.25 in April 2020 to $347.50 in late January 2021 – a rise of 10,692%. They were piling into the stock just as hedge funds started betting against the company after pandemic doldrums, when gamers were moving online.

While GameStop has since shut hundreds of stores, including 590 in 2025, Cohen says the 1,600 remaining sites will offer eBay a “national network for authentication, intake, fulfilment, and live commerce”.

Those stores could serve as “drop-off and shipping nodes”, and double as broadcasting studios, with eBay providing the goods and customer base for events like livestreamed auctions, it said. “GameStop staff already inspect and grade hardware and trading cards every day. Sellers walk in, items are verified on the spot, and listings carry a trust badge,” GameStop’s slide deck added.

In his letter to eBay’s chair, Cohen hit out at the online resale site for spending $2.4bn on sales and marketing in 2025, while only seeing a 0.75% increase in active buyers, on a net basis. “More spend is not producing more users on a marketplace with near-universal brand recognition,” he said

His cost cutting plan would slash $1.2bn from eBay’s annual sales and marketing budget, another $300m from product development, and $500m from administrative departments including HR, legal support and IT.

“Our board unanimously supports this proposal,” Cohen said.

It comes days after eBay reported first-quarter results, having reported revenue of $3.09bn, beating analysts’ estimate ‌of $3.04bn, as it stepped up its use of AI to improve communication between buyers and sellers. Ebay bosses now expect second quarter revenue to beat Wall Street forecasts, thanks to demand for collectibles and the growing popularity of live-streamed auctions.

Ebay is also in the process of acquiring the British secondhand fashion resale app Depop from Etsy for about $1.2bn in cash, in an effort to target younger fashion-loving consumers.