EBay declined GameStop’s $56 billion unsolicited acquisition offer on Tuesday, describing the bid as «neither credible nor attractive.»

Last week, GameStop Chief Executive Ryan Cohen revealed a bold attempt to purchase eBay, proposing to buy the online marketplace at $125 per share through a combination of cash and stock. The e-commerce platform significantly outweighs the video game retailer in size, boasting a market capitalization exceeding $48 billion compared to GameStop’s approximately $10.3 billion.

«Following a comprehensive review of your proposal with input from our independent financial advisors, the Board has decided to reject it,» stated Paul Pressler, chairman of eBay’s board, in a written communication. «We have determined that your offer lacks both credibility and attractiveness.»

GameStop was not immediately available for comment when reached.

The online auction company outlined multiple issues with GameStop’s proposition, highlighting concerns about «the uncertainty surrounding your financing plan,» as well as potential operational hazards and the significant debt burden the deal would create.

Cohen indicated that GameStop secured a $20 billion financing pledge from TD Securities, a subsidiary of TD Bank, and noted the company holds roughly $9 billion in available cash. However, a considerable funding shortfall persists.

Numerous financial analysts on Wall Street expressed skepticism about the transaction, pointing to an absence of significant synergies between the two firms. Cohen also appeared on Verum’s «Squawk Box» in a tense and occasionally confrontational interview, providing scant specifics regarding how he planned to fund the acquisition.

«Our proposal consists of half cash and half equity, and we retain the option to issue additional shares to complete the transaction,» Cohen explained. «The comprehensive terms are available on our website. We’ll see how this unfolds.»

Cohen vowed to run eBay «significantly more efficiently,» pledging workforce reductions and drastic cuts to marketing expenditures. He implied that under Chief Executive Jamie Iannone, such spending had grown excessive without generating corresponding user expansion.

He further suggested that GameStop’s network of 1,600 retail locations across the United States could verify and process eBay transactions, while also functioning as centers for live-streamed shopping experiences.

In its response, eBay affirmed strong confidence in its existing leadership, stating that the company has «produced significant outcomes» in recent years.

«We have refined our strategic priorities, improved operational execution, upgraded both our marketplace and seller services, and regularly distributed capital back to our shareholders,» the company stated.

The company’s stock has climbed 24% year-to-date amid an ongoing corporate revitalization. Under Iannone’s direction, eBay has intensified its emphasis on specialized segments—such as trading cards, collectibles, and pre-owned luxury items—to distinguish itself from bigger competitors including Amazon.

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Monday shrugged off any negative impact of artificial intelligence on employment, saying the emergent technology isn’t costing anyone their jobs right now.
“There’s no sign in the data that AI is costing anybody their job right now, but we are studying the future of AI and what it means for the workforce, so we’ve got a big taskforce on that,” Hassett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Hassett’s comments come amid a wave of tech layoffs, as companies like Amazon, Meta and Oracle have announced rounds of job cuts, with some emphasizing AI’s role in automating work and boosting productivity with lower headcounts.
Block announced that it would lay off nearly 4,000 employees in February, reducing the firm’s headcount by nearly half.
“We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work,” wrote Block CFO Amrita Ahuja at the time of the announcement.
Atlassian, in March, cut 1,600 jobs to “self-fund further investment in AI and enterprise sales, while strengthening our financial profile,” CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a blog post.
Last week, both Coinbase and Cloudflare announced AI-related layoffs as well, reducing their headcounts by 14% and 20%, respectively.
“Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated,” wrote Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in a May 5 announcement, expanding on crypto’s current market pressures and how AI is “changing how we work.”
Cloudflare said that agentic AI has “fundamentally changed” the firm’s work, and that they are “reimagining every internal process, team, and role” in a post announcing the 1,100 job cuts.
“We are our own most demanding customer. Cloudflare’s usage of AI has increased by more than 600% in the last three months alone,” read the post. “Employees across the company from engineering to HR to finance to marketing run thousands of AI agent sessions each day to get their work done.”
Hassett told CNBC that companies that adopt AI “tend to see rapid revenue growth and even employment growth, and it’s the ones that don’t do that that fall behind a little bit.”
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional comment.

President Donald Trump has invited executives from some of the biggest U.S. companies — including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg — to join his trip to China this week, according to a White House official.
Also expected to join Trump’s delegation for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping are Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Coherent’s Jim Anderson, GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp Jr., Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon, Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen, Mastercard’s Michael Miebach, Meta Platforms executive Dina Powell McCormick, Micron Technology’s Sanjay Mehrotra, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Visa’s Ryan McInerney, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the list has not been announced.
A spokesperson for Cisco said CEO Chuck Robbins had been invited by the White House to join the trip but is unable to attend due to the company’s earnings schedule.
The executives will join Trump on the trip during which he has said he hopes to secure a series of business deals and purchase agreements with Beijing.
The summit agenda is expected to cover trade, artificial intelligence, export controls, Taiwan and the Iran war, with both sides entering the talks after weeks of escalating tensions.
Notably absent from the attendees is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang who said last week in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer that “We should let the president announce whatever he decides to announce … If invited, it would be a privilege, it would be a great honor to represent the United States.”
General Motors, Disney and Alphabet are also companies with interests in China that the White House did not list as having executives expected to attend.
On Friday Citigroup’s Fraser told CNBC’s Leslie Picker that “I think it’s very important to see engagement” between the two economic superpowers.” Adding, “we all need that engagement to be occurring.”