PIERS MORGAN x COHEN🕴️ ~ Live Reaction & Takeaways!

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]Piers Morgan interviews Ryan Cohen. This is my live reaction, my first time listening to this interview. I'm interested to see if we learn anything from what he said or what he almost said that gives us any type of insight as it relates to GameStop's pursuit of eBay or Ryan Cohen's intentions in general.

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[00:00:46]Let's get into it without further ado and see what we can learn from Piers and Cohen.

[00:00:51]>> Legions of fanatical followers are not something normally associated with CEOs, but rebel entrepreneur Ryan Cohen is no ordinary suit. Cohen is the boss >> Rebel entrepreneur, okay.

[00:01:03]I don't exactly like how you're teeing this up, Piers, but let's see.

[00:01:06]>> of GameStop, the once ailing bricks-and-mortar video game store, which became a $10 billion business as the original meme stock. You made global headlines >> He's a rebel CEO and GameStop is the original meme stock.

[00:01:22]Piers, you better start giving us some legitimate credit as a company.

[00:01:25]>> months by launching an audacious $55 billion bid for eBay. And his first interview since that bid was emphatically rejected, when he now joins me. Well, welcome, Ryan Cohen, to my senses.

[00:01:38]>> Nice to see you.

[00:01:39]>> So, you pulled off this extraordinary move where you made this gigantic bid for eBay, one of the biggest tech firms in the world.

[00:01:50]Um you tried to buy it and people immediately said, "Well, where's the money going to come from?" And I want to play a clip from an interview you did with CNBC that went a bit viral when you seem to struggle to give the answer.

[00:02:02]Maybe we >> Okay, this is This is me I mean this It doesn't mean he's out, but this is the third strike.

[00:02:08]Okay, he's Ryan Cohen's a rebel, GameStop is a meme, and now he is going to clip the Squawk Box. I mean, I'm sure surely this interview gets better, but but now he's, you know, teeing it up a third time with with doubt, right? About can GameStop even finance it? And obviously uh we'll see how this goes.

[00:02:32]>> Get some clarity. Let's take a look.

[00:02:34]>> I'm I'm just trying to understand where the the rest of the money would come from.

[00:02:40]>> So, half cash, half stock.

[00:02:44]>> I I I'm I hear you. I'm just saying that that math doesn't get you to the to the price that you're offering.

[00:02:56]>> So, right? And that's a pretty straightforward question. I don't get it.

[00:02:59]>> [laughter] >> Like where's the rest of the money coming from?

[00:03:03]Andrew laid it out pretty clearly.

[00:03:06]>> I I don't understand your question.

[00:03:07]We're offering half cash, half stock, and we have the ability to issue stock in order to get the deal done.

[00:03:15]But the full details of of the offer on our are on our website.

[00:03:21]>> So, they say >> I I just hated that interview so much, by the way.

[00:03:26]So disingenuous. Let's see how this one goes.

[00:03:28]>> Seemed a bit baffled um to be honest, Ryan, as did some other people. So, Michael Burry, famous of course for uh the depiction of him and his uh shorting in the Big Short after the 2008 global financial crisis, he sold his entire position in your company GameStop in >> That's the fourth strike. Michael Burry's selling, right? He's a genius, and he's selling.

[00:03:51]Are you going to say anything nice, Piers?

[00:03:53]>> Immediately after that interview, he said, "Never confuse debt for creativity." He called the potential deal a road to capitalist hell. So, look, you've got the opportunity now in a very unsensitive environment to clarify things. First of all, were you surprised by the reaction to your CNBC interview, and not least Michael Burry immediately uh selling his entire position?

[00:04:20]>> I was surprised by their lack of understanding um of uh of the structure, cuz it's very simple.

[00:04:28]It's half cash, it's half stock. Uh we have the ability to issue stock. Uh essentially, the eBay shareholders are going to continue owning eBay, except it's going to be run by an owner-operator as opposed to an entrenched management team um that has zero invested and zero skin in the game. And the other half of the structure, we've got 9 billion of cash on our balance sheet, and our bankers have advised us that they feel confident in our ability to raise 20 billion. Uh so, it's a straightforward deal, but um you know, it was it's too complicated for them on CNBC.

[00:05:12]>> Nice.

[00:05:14]Well done, Cohen.

[00:05:16]>> Z.

[00:05:17]>> Yeah, I mean, look, that I know those guys at CNBC. They're extremely smart when it comes to business. They seemed completely baffled and didn't think your math added up.

[00:05:27]>> I This is exactly what I said in my reaction to that CNBC interview is people think of these guys, the CNBC crew, as the experts. Right? Piers is just like, I know those guys. They're super smart.

[00:05:42]And when people see that they are acting baffled, acting sketched out, acting as though this doesn't make sense, and acting as if the math doesn't even add up, people aren't going to fact-check that.

[00:05:56]They're just going to assume by reputation, well, these guys do all the interviews with everyone. This must not be a good deal. This must not make sense. This must be shady in some way.

[00:06:06]And Piers is confessing that he he has that same judgment. He's saying, "These I know them. They're smart, and they say the math doesn't even add up." Let's see how he finishes his his commentary here, but it's it's frustrating when Cohen can explain it so simply, and I could explain it so not quite as eloquently, but very simply, and and yet the the talking heads of our world are are jumping on a narrative that's fabricated to begin with.

[00:06:42]>> You make it sound very simple. Why are they so bemused?

[00:06:46]>> I don't know. Maybe they spent uh too much time uh in college or something. I have zero idea.

[00:06:54]>> Cohen, we got to get You can't just You can't just keep throwing college under the bus, okay? There's I mean, all colleges A lot of people went to college, Cohen.

[00:07:05]A lot of people, Cohen, that are invested in GameStop went to college. A lot of people that are working at the institutions that own eBay went Okay, all of college can't be the laughing stock, but if you want to gain any type of popular You can talk about fraud on Wall Street. Everyone loves that, except for a few people. But most people like have a general It's just going to be You versus all of college is going to be harder It's going to be harder to win that one, Cohen.

[00:07:40]>> Michael Burry is no fool. I'm sure you'd agree with that. He was the guy that predicted the crash in 2008. They made a movie about him.

[00:07:48]Um, is he completely wrong as well? Why is he just bailed out completely following that interview?

[00:07:55]>> You'd have to ask him.

[00:07:57]Um, I can't speak for him.

[00:08:00]Uh, there's going to be leverage.

[00:08:03]More leverage than he likely uh, anticipated.

[00:08:08]But, I don't want to run a leveraged business and um, I feel very good about our prospects to cut $2 billion of cost out of the business and uh, and likely a lot more than that. So, um, >> So, great great here. I speculated following his interview uh, with Anthony Pompliano that that $2 billion seems to him to be the floor.

[00:08:37]That that's what he's considering considering a commitment. But, that he likely has his eyes set on even more cost cutting than that. And he just confirmed as much right there. So, that's huge.

[00:08:50]>> But, I can't speak for Michael.

[00:08:52]>> I mean, look. I'm you're obviously extremely smart business guy. You've made billions.

[00:08:56]>> We are we're 25% of the way into this interview and so far all of the framing is doubt towards Cohen. And and still Piers again is teeing up this next question with a similar type of posture, similar type of tone. Like, you're so great. How could this be so not great? You know, like anyways.

[00:09:21]Not impressed so far, but we did just get one important nugget from Cohen there.

[00:09:26]>> in what you do. And we'll come to some of the things you've done. Um, so I'm not you know, I'm not putting myself on your level at all here. But, the CNBC people aren't stupid nor is Michael Barry. and the general reaction has been one of severe doubt that you can finance this deal in the way that you are making sounds.

[00:09:46]>> Like, Piers, why do you This is so stupid. Like You already asked this question, okay, first of all.

[00:09:55]And you asked it a second time.

[00:09:57]Right? You asked about CNBC and Michael Burry, and he answered you. Then you asked again to follow up specifically Michael Burry, and he answered you.

[00:10:05]And he already told you so simply.

[00:10:08]And you're like, yeah, that's crazy. It sounds so simple. I still don't believe you. I still have all this doubt. And now you're asking a third time because of people's feelings of doubt, which are really your feelings of doubt, which were planted in you on purpose by this CNBC group. Like Cohen's like, we have a banker.

[00:10:31]They feel highly confident that they will loan us 20 billion.

[00:10:36]Like, what do you want me to say? But people don't think that they will. It's like, well, they said that they will.

[00:10:43]So, like, what is the controversy here, Piers?

[00:10:48]>> [laughter] >> I don't I honestly, can anyone help me understand this?

[00:10:54]It's crazy.

[00:10:56]Like, what Why does he feel that his his perceived doubt is somehow more tangibly real than the actual responsible parties?

[00:11:09]It's like if I It's just It's just insane to me.

[00:11:14]I'm a dad. I have three kids. I'm going to I'm going to feed them dinner.

[00:11:20]Right? I'm going to I'm going to cook dinner for them.

[00:11:23]And Piers is going to come on and say Well, you know, we did Michael Burry and CNBC and, you know, me like I I know these people and everyone's saying they don't they don't think you're going to feed your kids dinner.

[00:11:40]So, like what are you going to do?

[00:11:44]It's like what it's not it's not their it's not their responsibility.

[00:11:49]The beep like I'm going to do it. I said I'm going to do it.

[00:11:52]It's like well, do you know do you realize you're going to have to like get food?

[00:11:58]You're going to have to like go get some food from the store or you're going to just grow it out of the ground? You're just going to grow your own food like if you you can't get it from the store, you're going to have to like grow it out of the ground. Like what are you going to do?

[00:12:12]It's like well, yeah, like there's a lot of stores and these are the prices for food and they said they'll sell it to me for that price. So, I'm probably going to do that and then I'll cook it.

[00:12:26]Like [laughter] why are you framing the doubt as if the doubt is reality rather than addressing the responsible parties and talking about the reality?

[00:12:37]>> That's simple. What do you say to to everyone who doesn't think this adds up?

[00:12:44]>> Well, first of all, in terms of skepticism, there's uh always been a lot of skepticism around GameStop. It's a business that was highly shorted um and everyone was betting against >> Much better played by Cohen than me, by the way. He's kept his composure quite nicely.

[00:13:02]>> against that and it should have gone bankrupt many times over and it didn't and now it's highly profitable.

[00:13:10]Chewy, there was a lot of skepticism going head-to-head against pets.com and then competing against Amazon. In this case uh there it's less about the actual financing and it's more about dealing with uh an entrenched board and management team that ultimately if this transaction goes through, they rejected it and overall they were right. It's not attractive to them because if this deal goes through, the board that made $4 million in director fees last year is kaput and they're gone and the management team that's making hundreds of millions of dollars in risk risk-free compensation and is never the CEO has never invested a dollar of his own money since being CEO. So, that's the problem. The problem is we need a go you know, we need a we need a deal with the owners of the business as opposed to a management team and board that has perverse financial incentives and they're just employees.

[00:14:10]It's a paycheck. They're not the owners.

[00:14:12]>> The >> So, a nice rant against the management of eBay as it relates to the doubt, Cohen's basically saying, "Look, we've always been doubted."

[00:14:20]As it relates to GameStop and Chewy, we were legitimately doubted. As it relates to the doubt that's happening now, what Cohen is saying is that that's that doubt is being manufactured by eBay.

[00:14:32]It's pretty much what he's saying. Like, the management team is casting doubt and that is what in some ways is influencing different mainstream media that eBay's obviously a larger corporation, you know, whatever legacy shorts of GameStop maybe influencing media. Like, he's saying the doubt is being artificially manufactured because it is in the best interests of those in power at those institutions for us to fail.

[00:14:59]But, if you're talking about the actual financing if you're talking about am I actually going to be able to feed my kids dinner, it's like there's nothing to doubt.

[00:15:07]There's no there's nothing to discuss as it relates to our end of the bargain. But, if you're asking me why is there doubt, you want to give me you do you want me to give commentary on it? My perspective is it's just one more illustration of the inept corruption in this specific company that needs to be dealt with. So, thanks for asking me, Mr. Morgan.

[00:15:33]>> eBay response from the chairman Paul Pressler in a letter to you was, we have concluded your proposal is not >> Here we go. Next I mean, we're on like strike six or something. Another question that's not based on anything substantive with GameStop or eBay, but but doubt frames towards Cohen and GameStop's ability and desirability to merge, to execute as this acquisition, etc. >> the credible nor attractive. They laid out six factors affecting their decision. One, eBay's stand-alone prospects. They said eBay will do better going it alone. Two, the uncertainty regarding your financing proposal. In other words, they don't think you have enough money via GameStop. The impact of your proposal on eBay's long-term growth and profitability. In other words, concerns for the future success of the company due to the talk of cuts.

[00:16:30]The leverage, operational risks, and leadership structure of the combined entity. In other words, you might damage eBay in the long term by combining it with GameStop and poor management. The resulting implications of these factors on valuation. You might make eBay less valuable due to your management style and GameStop's governance and executive incentives. In other words, they don't think you're fit to run eBay. What is your kind of overall response to the eBay management team?

[00:16:58]>> I'm not like them.

[00:17:00]I'm an owner-operator. I'm not a I'm I'm not the one of the country club executives that get recruited through these professional agencies. So, >> Look at Piers Morgan's I don't know this to me was a noticeably lar- a noticeable swallow.

[00:17:25]>> [laughter] >> A silent gulp. When Cohen says, "I'm not like them."

[00:17:31]It's like it's like Piers just received a death sentence in this moment. Look at this.

[00:17:36]>> Insane.

[00:17:38]I'm not like them.

[00:17:40]Uh I'm an owner-operator. I'm not a uh I'm I >> Maybe never mind. Maybe I just saw that out of the corner of my eye.

[00:17:47]>> I'm not the one of the country club executives that >> But he doesn't look comfortable, that's for sure.

[00:17:53]>> that get recruited through uh these professional agencies. So, my incentives are aligned with maximizing shareholder value. And the way to do that at any company is to make the business stronger and much more profitable. So, I mean, they're going to throw up every single one of these excuses. The bottom line is we offered shareholders a 46% premium to uh when we originally started buying it, and they didn't even take me up on my offer to meet with them. And they did all this BS stuff with their advisers and issued a public press release, but didn't set up a meeting with me. So, ultimately, it's up to the owners of the business. They're um they're just in the way.

[00:18:41]>> But on the specific >> Well said, Cohen.

[00:18:45]Well said.

[00:18:47]It's like, "Hey, they don't think I can run the business. How do they know?

[00:18:49]They've never even met me, and they refuse to talk to me."

[00:18:53]You know what I mean?

[00:18:54]>> specific point that people who are criticizing this have made.

[00:19:00]>> Here's another question, also again from a very negative framework.

[00:19:04]Putting Cohen in a defensive posture to have to explain himself rather than talking about the actual numbers.

[00:19:11]It's just like, "Here's these six things that eBay is saying. Cohen's like, "Yeah, just look look at the actual numbers of how they're actually running their business.

[00:19:20]And you can see straight through all the BS."

[00:19:24]But apparently all Pierce wants to talk about is BS today.

[00:19:27]>> My understanding is the cash part of the offer is expected to be funded by, as you've illustrated, a combination of cash and liquid investments on your balance sheet at GameStop, which totaled $9.4 billion as of January 31st this year, and third-party acquisition financing with up to $20 billion in debt financing from TD Securities. Now, people have said that with GameStop currently valued at $10.69 billion, assuming GameStop >> Nice.

[00:19:56]>> was providing all its stock for the deal, you're looking at a $16 billion shortfall. So, purely I you know, for viewers who don't want to get too much in the weeds, that is the weeds of this and why people are skeptical.

[00:20:10]>> That's not the weeds of it, Pierce.

[00:20:13]He's just taking 20 billion plus 9 billion and then adding the equity on top of that, which is crazy anyways, first of all, because the $10 equity factors in the fact that they have 9 billion in cash. But if you're going to strip out the cash and leave the equity unaffected, well, guess what? You don't just You also have eBay.

[00:20:34]Duh.

[00:20:36]20 plus 9 plus 10 Huh?

[00:20:40]That's only 39.

[00:20:43]But you're offering to pay 56.

[00:20:47]That's why the math doesn't work. It's like, "No, you freaking troll." Like, it's it's 20 plus 9 plus 10 plus 56.

[00:21:01]Right? eBay is a part of that merger.

[00:21:04]GameStop doesn't have to dilute GameStop independently and then eBay is just like it's just added in later.

[00:21:14]It's it's the combined company that the valuation is based at that the equity value is based on.

[00:21:23]It's just crazy.

[00:21:24]>> To that specific point, what do you say?

[00:21:28]>> Well, there's dilution, but there's two kinds of dilution. There's dilution that's dilutive to earnings per share and there's dilution that's accretive to earnings per share. So, ultimately this is not the first scenario where a smaller business has combined with a larger business. Ultimately here what's changing is the management team uh and the board and it's it it would be run by me as opposed to a bunch of professional directors.

[00:22:01]>> And you want eBay ultimate >> Very well said, Cohen.

[00:22:04]>> And you see you've put it to be a legitimate competitor to Amazon.

[00:22:08]So, obviously they operate in a similar kind of marketplace way. What would be the first things you do? I mean Polymarket at the moment uh the prediction market has a 16% uh possibility that you will still acquire eBay.

[00:22:22]>> That's interesting.

[00:22:24]I wonder how how is that updated?

[00:22:27]That's super interesting.

[00:22:29]>> It's a clearly and certainly from your >> That means I mean that to me I see opportunity there and it confirms that GameStop trading where it's trading is a reflection of doubt that if the doubt if if the if the doubt versus confidence meter is 84% to doubt to 16% confidence, then that means if you as a shareholder are confident in Cohen and GameStop, then there's a lot of upside that is not currently being priced in.

[00:23:05]>> Let's try to misinterpret you. You're not giving up at all in your pursuit of it. If you were to get your hands on it, what would be the things you would immediately do to try and be more competitive with Amazon?

[00:23:19]>> Finally, a constructive question, by the way, based on reality. Although, he did still slide in that poly market. Like, by the way, everyone thinks you're full of it. But, anyways, let's just say you succeed. What would you do? Succeed in acquiring it, you know.

[00:23:35]So, not not quite a fair question yet, but maybe that's just his style on this show. Maybe he's just always kind of pissy at people.

[00:23:44]>> Well, when I say Amazon, it's not going head-to-head in in first-party large categories like consumables. And eBay's the place where you go to buy a rare pen or a trading card or something like that. Amazon is the place where you go to buy phone chargers. So, it's not to beat Amazon at its own game.

[00:24:04]When I say when I say Amazon, it's building something that's much larger.

[00:24:10]Um, and I believe that the business don't believe I would make the business much much more profitable get by getting rid of the blow. And running it more like a family business as opposed to a gigantic corporation and moving much more quickly. And focusing going deep into other categories like live commerce where eBay has not been able to compete and has all of the assets in order to compete. And there's a lot of other categories where eBay can do a lot better. So, the web they're spending, by the way, they're spending over 50% of their revenues on operating expenses.

[00:24:49]And the website still looks like it did in 1995. So, it's a great business. And if you You at the financial performance of the company over the past 5 years, it's done terribly. And if you look at since the financial crisis, there's been a lot of competition in e-commerce by way of from the Shopifys of the world to social commerce to to Amazon and yet eBay is still there in spite of having a really shitty management team. So, I love the asset.

[00:25:21]It's run by a bunch of losers and it's something that can be a lot more successful if it was run by an owner that's an entrepreneur that has not just a much larger vision, but knows how to run a business and make a lot of money and cares cuz I have my own money on the line.

[00:25:40]>> You sound >> don't like the management team. I don't like the board of directors and I have such disdain for these people that make hundreds of thousands, that 10 tens of millions of dollars in risk-free compensation and everything is done in uh in the name of corporate governance and all stuff like that, but they don't give a crap about shareholders.

[00:26:00]>> You're sounding >> I like it.

[00:26:04]I like it a lot.

[00:26:06]It's interesting anytime Cohen makes a comment about eBay, he has to describe how poorly they've done whilst still also describing how how valuable they could become and the linchpin of both falling on management.

[00:26:24]The truth is an eBay shareholder by voting if if a hypothetical proxy war begins, an eBay shareholder voting for GameStop to acquire eBay is not quite exactly as simple as oh, I still get all my eBay and I just get to have Cohen as CEO.

[00:26:46]It's like, well, no, you're you're getting half cash, half stock.

[00:26:50]You don't get You're not getting all stock.

[00:26:52]>> [laughter] >> You know what I mean? Like you could use that cash to then buy stock but if the stocks already begun to rally as an eBay shareholder you might end up with less a less concentrated ownership of your asset than if you stayed with your current shareholder or current uh management and board. Like you you don't have to share eBay with anyone if you vote no but then you're stuck with your current management team.

[00:27:19]So anyways it's just interesting Cohen framing it as it's exactly the same.

[00:27:25]It's just who do you want to manage you?

[00:27:27]That's a little bit of posturing on his part. It's not really exactly the same if from an eBay perspective.

[00:27:34]But the more important reality is hey even if you take a little bit of an equity haircut the long-term value you will realize on your slightly cut equity is still going to deliver you far more in total equity on a five or 10-year time horizon than if you had a 100% of the pie without Cohen. Take 80% of the pie with Cohen it will give you more pie than 100% of the pie without Cohen.

[00:28:07]That's that's really the math that you're factoring in as an eBay shareholder but Cohen's not really getting into that um because it's it's more helpful for him to just frame it as one-to-one.

[00:28:18]And the only difference is me entrepreneur versus them uh like professional managers. And there is very much a difference between a corporate employee and an entrepreneur.

[00:28:29]The framework for decision-making and the way of operating is very very different just fundamentally from from really every hour of the day. So I do think that is enticing to think about Cohen leading your company versus people that have been highly educated and risen the corporate ladder that who are now running your company that don't actually own your company.

[00:28:55]>> A little bit like Elon Musk. Would you take that as a compliment?

[00:29:00]>> I mean, uh Elon has made history multiple times.

[00:29:05]So, uh you know, he's uh he's one of the greatest entrepreneurs of of our time.

[00:29:13]>> Do you know him?

[00:29:14]>> Wow. This is interesting. I did not expect it to go here. We've been on in the GameStop community, we've been comparing Cohen and his compensation structure, Cohen's strategy, even Cohen's political comments sometimes uh to Elon Musk and we've been comparing GameStop in many ways to Tesla.

[00:29:33]And some of you guys know Tesla was kind of my my first moonshot investment that took me from a portfolio of 10 grand to a portfolio of over $500,000 based on how I played tech Tesla from 2019 to 2021, which I ended up ultimately rolling into this play with GME.

[00:29:55]That said, I didn't expect Cohen to be asked has he heard about the comparisons and does he think they're valid?

[00:30:04]Well, he said he generally speaking he likes it. He likes the association.

[00:30:10]And now Piers just asked him, "Have you ever met him or have you talked to him?"

[00:30:13]>> Have you speak to him?

[00:30:16]>> Um we've we've we've messaged but we don't have a personal relationship.

[00:30:23]>> Hey, let's go. [laughter] He's talked to Elon. Let's go.

[00:30:30]Let's go.

[00:30:32]Yeah, he's not my friend, but yeah, the wealthiest dude on the freaking planet.

[00:30:37]Yeah, we've messaged. Do you think Elon has messaged the board of eBay?

[00:30:43]I don't think so.

[00:30:44]I do not think so. Do you think he's messaged Cohen? He's messaged Cohen.

[00:30:50]Let's go.

[00:30:52]Uh you know, politics aside, love or disdain for Elon aside, as far as I'm concerned, bullish that Cohen has at least access or has had before access to probably the most powerful person on the planet, if we're being honest.

[00:31:12]Helpful when you run a company.

[00:31:14]>> And what about Jeff Bezos? I mean, at the moment he hears someone say, "We're going to compete with Amazon," he might take a view, "We're going to crush you."

[00:31:22]What would you say if he decides to try and crush you?

[00:31:26]>> Uh well, >> You got to love that little smirk from Cohen right there.

[00:31:31]He is not concerned at all.

[00:31:32]>> say if he decides to try and crush you.

[00:31:36]>> Uh well, um we went head-to-head against Amazon selling 30-lb bags of pet food, and we did okay.

[00:31:46]And uh he's no longer running the business. You know, he's uh so, that's okay. Competition is good, but but e- >> Ha ha ha.

[00:31:56]He already tried to crush me, and he lost. And by the way, he quit that job at Amazon. He doesn't do that anymore.

[00:32:04]>> eBay has a mode, and and they're not going head-to-head against Amazon, and I my my mhm my vision is not to go head-to-head against Amazon. It's to run eBay and to make it a much better, more profitable, larger eBay. And it's something that should be worth a lot more than it's than it's worth, because it can grow a lot more, and it's going to make a lot a lot more money. So, >> If you type your name >> It's important for him to keep talking about a lot more, because again, if you're an eBay shareholder, you you need to think about does 80% you know, if I give up equity concentration in the asset in the eBay asset, if I forfeit 10, 20, 30% of my concentration in that asset for the benefit of Cohen, it can't be for a marginal improvement.

[00:33:00]It cannot be oh, we like him more and we'll we'll trend just slightly better. It needs to be meaningfully better. Like it needs to be dramatically more valuable under Cohen on a three-to-five-year time horizon than than without Cohen. Otherwise, it's not worth it to take that equity haircut. So, smart by Cohen.

[00:33:25]>> name into Google. There are lots of variants of Ryan Cohen a genius, Ryan Cohen a half-wit, and everything in between. You've probably seen it all yourself. You've probably Googled yourself like all good public figures.

[00:33:37]Um, but you know, for viewers who are not familiar with your story, you founded an e-commerce pet food company called Chewy. Uh, and it did fantastically well. You sold it for $3.35 billion in 2017.

[00:33:50]Conversely, you had a 10% stake in Bed Bath & Beyond uh in March 2022. You called for changes at the company as you are doing now with eBay. Um, you sent shares up as much as 70%. Five months later, you disclosed you'd sold your stake and the shares spiraled. So, >> What's he going to say about BBBY or or will he?

[00:34:12]>> People look at the first one and think genius. Second one think sharp operator.

[00:34:18]Can we really trust him? What would you say to people that have that view of you?

[00:34:25]>> Uh, I've done two things. I built and was the CEO of Chewy and I'm going to CEO of GameStop. So, those are those those were the companies where I was involved personally in building and running those companies.

[00:34:40]And in terms of other stuff and investments in Bed Bath, uh I wasn't running that business. That was uh again a professional management team that remarkably ran a business that was a great business into the ground very very very quickly. And it it's remarkable what they did. Not in a good way, but you know, they ran the business to the ground and they were buying back stock while losing hundreds of millions of dollars. So, uh but I wasn't running that business.

[00:35:13]>> Interesting. So, couple things there.

[00:35:16]Right off the bat, he disassociates.

[00:35:19]Like he's like, "Don't judge me on BBBY.

[00:35:22]That's not my company. That's not my thing. It's not even like like in in Cohen's opinion, he's like, "That's not my trade." Like he's not even for it.

[00:35:34]And it sounds like the management team of BBBY, which is what they ultimately were sued for in bankruptcy court, artificially tanked their company.

[00:35:51]Like they already were artificially tanking their company, but they expedited it dramatically more so through basically burning money with stock buybacks and then sending the stock lower.

[00:36:06]Um that Cohen ultimately like realized that the amount of time it would take him to fix the wrongs that like they were they were lighting everything on fire.

[00:36:19]It's like Cohen sent them a letter in the mail and they freaked out, crapped the bed.

[00:36:25]They're like, "Let's just burn it all down, and then there's no way he'll come and buy us cuz it would be such a big mess. It's like if eBay like somehow like just just turned off their website.

[00:36:37]>> [laughter] >> It's or like deleted all their seller history. Gone.

[00:36:42]It's There's no more seller history.

[00:36:44]Everyone's profiles are wiped.

[00:36:48]Like it's like if eBay sabotaged themselves to that extent, that's basically what happened with BBBY. They said, "Let's make this asset so unattractive that Cohen doesn't follow through on his end." And it sounds like Cohen's saying like he's like he sold.

[00:37:04]You know, I don't I don't know for the DK butterfly hopefuls out there that maybe he still is planning a redemption. It is still in bankruptcy court, but to me it Based on his response there, it doesn't sound to me like a guy that deep down in his back pocket, he's like, "Just wait till I bring that thing back to life and capture their NOLs." It doesn't sound like that to me.

[00:37:30]It sounds like someone who said, "Hey, I don't even associate with that. Don't judge me by that. I wanted to run that business and they lit it on fire.

[00:37:39]And so I sold. Um that I didn't see a lot in between the lines that would indicate that he has any intention to still somehow resurrect the bankrupted entity. Which is sad for me as someone who held some BBBYQ into bankruptcy.

[00:37:58]Um but obviously very different from eBay where Cohen basic I mean, he's like, "Um um as long as eBay doesn't sabotage their own value in a dramatic way like deleting the seller history, then you know, Cohen's like, 'I want this business as it stands and I don't think management is bold enough to light their business on fire like BBBY did because BBBY's management was there to bankrupt the business. Like that was their goal under the table.

[00:38:36]That's what they were there to do and they just had to get it done faster.

[00:38:40]eBay's management team is not there to bankrupt the business. They're not there heavily shorted to be seller box. They are there as as corporate grifters. So they're there to milk the cow for as long as they can. Um so lighting the business on fire doesn't really I don't think Cohen's really nervous about the prospect of them doing that cuz it just doesn't make sense for them to do that.

[00:39:03]>> There are lots of top business people who were on Air Force One with President Trump flying to Beijing where they expect to be a lot of activity in the next few days. Obviously, you weren't on the plane. Would you like to have been cuz I understand you are quite a supporter of Donald Trump.

[00:39:18]>> That's a very strange question.

[00:39:22]>> Uh I am but I am focused on running GameStop and I'm focused on taking over eBay.

[00:39:31]>> Have you spoken to to Donald Trump at all about any of this?

[00:39:35]>> I have not.

[00:39:37]>> Do you >> Why did you say about any of this? Cuz you could have just let us know if you've talked to him.

[00:39:43]Interesting though Cohen did confirm he is genuinely a fan of Trump.

[00:39:47]Now obviously he's had several political tweets that would make you think that he is but he's also so trolly and meme-y that you never all you necessarily know if he really means what he's saying or if he's just you know, inciting the audience.

[00:40:06]So for him to say nonchalantly very clearly like yeah, he is a fan of Trump.

[00:40:10]There you go. If anyone was doubting that, you got that confirmation.

[00:40:14]>> Anticipate doing so?

[00:40:17]>> I I mean if it if it's if it's a if it's appropriate and it makes sense right now I'm dealing with um a bunch of professionals that are in the way.

[00:40:32]>> Wow, that Okay, that's actually quite interesting.

[00:40:36]>> If it if it's if it's a if it's appropriate and it makes sense >> Do you anticipate doing so? Was the question.

[00:40:46]Doing so meaning reaching out to Trump.

[00:40:52]Cohen said, "If it's appropriate and it makes sense. Right now, I'm dealing with management." If management tries to block him, if any type of funny business goes on, if any type of anti-trust type of stuff goes on like Cohen seems to feel pretty confident that he has the president on his side.

[00:41:18]Whether that's through donations he's made, whether that's just through his entrepreneurial story who knows?

[00:41:26]But very interesting that like Cohen I mean that's about as mob bossy as you can get >> [laughter] >> when you're trying to acquire a company and and it's like, "Hey, so do you think you're going to get the president involved?" He's like, "Well, you know, if we need to, we will."

[00:41:47]Jeez.

[00:41:49]This guy means business.

[00:41:51]>> Right now I'm dealing with um a bunch of professionals that are in the way.

[00:42:00]>> You're sounding quite pumped up and ruthless, Ryan. I mean if the eBay >> Look at that smile.

[00:42:06]>> executives are watching this, should they be quivering in their overpaid bloated boots?

[00:42:13]>> [laughter] >> Um they're going to do whatever they need to do to protect their jobs. I understand. It's survival. It's a paycheck for them.

[00:42:23]But um I want to run that business. I'm passionate about e-commerce.

[00:42:30]That's my core competency.

[00:42:32]And I want to make it a much larger business. So, I would like for them to engage with me constructively as opposed to giving me a BS response and not really understanding the components of the deal. Because it's attractive to shareholders and that's their job is to be a fiduciary of money that really they're not the owners. They're far from the owners.

[00:42:58]They they don't they don't invest their own money. They're milking it. So, they have a job to do the best for shareholders and engage on this. And if they don't, then we'll do whatever we need to do.

[00:43:11]>> I mean, that sounds all >> What are you going to do? We'll do whatever we need to do. Okay? We'll do whatever we need to do.

[00:43:16]>> almost mafioso.

[00:43:20]>> It's uh it's business.

[00:43:24]>> Piers Piers and I Turns out we're on the same page by the end of this.

[00:43:29]Piers like, you sound a little bit like a mob a mob boss. A little bit mafia vibes going on.

[00:43:35]Cohen, look at that eyebrow.

[00:43:37]Look at that eyebrow Cohen's raising in response to that comment.

[00:43:41]It's business. It's my business.

[00:43:44]>> [laughter] >> It's not your business, all right? It's my business.

[00:43:51]>> The Polly Market, as I said, have you at 16% to be successful in acquiring eBay.

[00:43:56]What would you put the percentage at?

[00:43:59]>> Uh what were the what what did they say the odds of uh Trump winning the presidency were?

[00:44:05]>> Probably first time less than 16% at the end actually.

[00:44:10]>> We asked them going head-to-head against Amazon selling 30 pound bags or turning around GameStop for that matter actually. I mean, everyone in the mainstream media most investors were betting against GameStop and look at the financial performance of the company. It went from losing hundreds of millions of dollars to now it's making hundreds of millions of dollars and everyone makes fun of GameStop. No one takes it seriously.

[00:44:39]All of Wall Street wrote it off, but it's a real business. Not it's not a good it's not like eBay. It's not a great business. It's physical retail.

[00:44:48]It's tough dealing with a lot of headwinds, but I'm uh skepticism is okay.

[00:44:55]It's good. It's normal.

[00:45:00]>> These smiles that he's giving, he's feeling himself for sure.

[00:45:05]16% odds, he's like, "Hey, that's that's better odds than anything I've done so far.

[00:45:11]That's better odds than GameStop had.

[00:45:13]That's better odds than Chewy had.

[00:45:15]And those things succeeded. And then he throws in the election example as something everyone else can uh understand within their own context who might not know Chewy or GameStop that well. Say, "Hey, just like those odds are all we need."

[00:45:32]And I'm not really concerned about what the odds are. What I'm concerned about is what's actually going to happen.

[00:45:38]And it sounds he's going to pull whatever string he needs behind any type of closed door and under any type of table.

[00:45:46]Sounds like he knows more people than the eBay managers know.

[00:45:51]He's certainly much wealthier than any of the eBay managers.

[00:45:55]Probably got Probably gets you somewhere in a capitalist society if we're being honest.

[00:46:00]>> Do Do have a favorite GameStop meme yourself?

[00:46:03]>> He's also, as far as mafia goes, maybe this isn't appropriate to compare to a mafia, but just on his last name and his Jewish heritage, again, probably gets you somewhere in America in a capitalist society to be generally speaking, a part of the wealthiest, you know, group or ethnicity, or I don't even know what you would describe it as.

[00:46:29]I'm just saying, like if we're going to play mafia takeover of eBay, Cohen versus eBay's current management team, I mean, it's not that hard to see who actually holds all the cards. Don't get lost in, "But eBay's a $50 market cap."

[00:46:48]Yeah, but the management team doesn't own any of that.

[00:46:54]Like, who has who holds more strings, more cards, who has more connections, and more wealth, Cohen or the managers of eBay?

[00:47:03]You know what I mean?

[00:47:05]It's looking pretty nice.

[00:47:08]>> There is a lot of them, and there's a lot of funny ones.

[00:47:12]>> [laughter] >> Well, Ryan, it's good to talk to you.

[00:47:14]It's going to be fascinating to see what happens.

[00:47:17]Uh and I'll send your regards to the CNBC guys, who I'm sure will be most entertained by your description of them. But uh thank you very much indeed for joining me.

[00:47:26]>> Yes, definitely. Nice to talk to you.

[00:47:29]>> Wow.

[00:47:31]There you have it.

[00:47:32]Piers Morgan, Ryan Cohen.

[00:47:37]Did we learn a ton? We didn't learn too, too much. We did get confirmation that um Ryan Cohen sees 2 billion in cost cuts as the floor, and that he does aspire to uh reduce SG&A and operating expenses by even more than that with eBay.

[00:47:58]We also got a pretty decent amount of uh politicking as it relates to how he's posturing the deal to eBay shareholders as a one-for-one when in reality it's not quite one-for-one.

[00:48:14]But it's still much much more enticing if I was an eBay shareholder, like it is worth engaging as a fiduciary for example to eBay shareholders to uh to engage with Cohen because it is generally speaking attractive for eBay shareholders. And then a lot of tea leaves on on on what was unsaid as it relates to who he knows and what the next steps are in this plan.

[00:48:45]And his level of confidence that GameStop will successfully acquire eBay is through the roof. More than any interview he's given this like this feels quite compelling, quite confident. And he's kind of like I'm not exact I'm not even going to tell you how I'm going to do it. I'm just going to do it. And if you think I'm not going to like just have have fun watching, I guess.

[00:49:16]Like he's like, "Hey, if you want to bet the 84% side of that Polymarket, go ahead.

[00:49:23]Let's see. See what happens. Go ahead.

[00:49:25]Go ahead and do it. You want to short GME? Go ahead.

[00:49:29]See See how it works out. Why don't you go go ahead and short that real quick.

[00:49:33]Why don't you go ahead and do that.

[00:49:35]You [laughter] know, like very uh exciting to think about the opportunity because ultimately if this merger happens, if GameStop successfully acquires eBay the floor in many ways gets much higher when you think about an EPS perspective, and the ceiling obviously gets much, much higher from both an EPS and a market cap, obviously, perspective.

[00:50:05]A lot of uh things to be excited about as a GameStop shareholder. That's all I got from this interview. If you got anything else, if you saw anything differently, would love to hear about it in the comments. That's all I got for you today. I will see you in the next one.