The idea of GameStop buying eBay is widely considered an absolutely dreadful one, but just in case anyone was still on the fence, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen gave an interview to CNBC that went so badly it left the hosts, and any viewers, dumbfounded. The core question behind this deeply peculiar move by GameStop is where the company could possibly get the money. Cohen’s answer? Yeah, still waiting on that, because he genuinely didn’t seem to understand the question.
GameStop is currently valued at a pretty spurious $11 billion, while eBay is roughly $47 billion. In a rational world, the former obviously couldn’t buy the latter, not least at the $56bn valuation Cohen has suggested. However, with enough backing from speculative investors, such deals are plausible, even if clearly ludicrous. But in GameStop’s case, even with a claimed $20 billion promise of financing, it still falls $14 billion short. That’s quite a lot of money to not have, and clearly people are interested to learn the strategy to overcome this. The only feasible one would be to dilute GameStop stock to the detriment of its shareholders, and Cohen either doesn’t know this, or isn’t willing to voice it. Instead, this is just a very unserious man making very outlandish claims. Oh, and the publicly traded eBay has expressed no intent in being bought.
In a six-minute interview with CNBC‘s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Cohen gave a series of mostly incoherent responses to the most basic questions, unable to provide any decipherable reasons why a flailing video game retail chain that’s relied on meme stocks and Pokémon cards for its recent survival would even think of trying to buy a massively larger, international e-commerce company. When asked by CNBC, “So you’ve built up a stake in this company already, you’ve had conversations with the company? You’ve tried? What’s happening here?” there’s a deeply awkward pause before Cohen, in his mid-life-crisis black leather jacket, says “…No.” Then after another glacial pause, “We’re just starting,” followed by a very peculiar smirk.
Cohen seemed to approach the entire interview with an affected air of disgust and disdain, as if it’s just so beneath him to even have to answer questions based on his announcements. The mini-Musk rolls his eyes and glibly dismisses reasonable questions, which was going badly enough until Sorkin asked the most obvious question of all: “How does the math math?” How does around $20 billion from GameStop and $20 billion from an investor get close to $56 billion? “Half cash, half stock” Cohen replies, after more eye rolling and disdain. And then he appears to get stuck in a loop, like a rubbish sleepy robot. Watch for yourself—be warned, you will wince hard enough to create diamonds.
Sorkin’s repeated attempts to ask Cohen how two plus two could ever equal 56 billion—as if explaining the concept to a confused child—become increasingly excruciating when you realize Cohen is just going to say, “Half cash, half stock” again, and then refer yet again to a website. The site in question is the weirdly fake-looking investor site for GameStop, and you will not be surprised to learn it does not explain this massive financial hole in any way. In fact, like Cohen himself, it just states that it will reach $55.5 billion by combining GameStop’s cash and liquid investments at $9.4 billion and $11 billion in stock, and the $20 billion from TD Securities. Then it just moves on.
The situation becomes so farcical that host Sorkin is unable to not laugh out loud, despite clearly trying not to. Co-host Becky Quick has no such inhibitions, loudly laughing at Cohen’s childish behavior and simply saying, “Where’s the rest of the money coming from?” Cohen’s reply? “I don’t understand your question.”
Trolling in money
There are two possibilities here. Either Cohen is attempting some misguided form of trolling, trying to impress Elon with his anti-press attitude, or, and far more frighteningly, he genuinely doesn’t understand the question. The former seems far more likely, and depressingly absolutely hit for the crypto-brained marks on Reddit’s r/superstonk. “This interview is glorious,” states one user on the subreddit, delighted by how Cohen was “standing tall” and “making these people look more like the clowns they really are.”
It’s quite fun that throughout this interview you can literally watch GameStop’s share price falling on the screen. Eventually Melissa Lee jumps in to say what Cohen clearly thinks he’s outsmarted the world by not revealing, which is that for this deal to even be half-possible it’d require diluting GameStop stock at the cost of shareholders. She then moves the conversation on to how GameStop plus eBay could possibly rival Amazon, something Cohen has claimed the combined GameStop + eBay could do.
You will perhaps not be overly surprised to learn that he doesn’t have a meaningful response. His answer boils down to, “eBay could be bigger.” Which is perhaps what a toddler might say in these circumstances.
Perhaps what’s most disturbing about this whole farce is how…normal it feels. In Trump’s America this is just how rich people have realized they can behave, while smart, informed people discover they’re speaking to infantile douchebags. Cohen clearly wants to be one of the big boys at the big boy parties, and the result is pitiable displays like this. But also ones that affect the tens of thousands of people employed by both companies in almost always negative ways.
