Don’t Waste Your Money on a Used Carpet Square from GameStop’s Billionaire CEO

I just wrapped up an article about GameStop’s latest venture, which feels a lot like a gamble. They’re offering a chance to pay $5,000 for a random Pokémon card, with the odds heavily stacked against you—most cards will likely be worth less than what you paid. In a lighthearted jab, I suggested that this might be a way for GameStop to fund its ambition to buy eBay, a goal that seems out of reach financially. Before my piece even went live, I got a strange email from GameStop’s Director of Communications, Nicolle Robles. The subject? “Actually this is how we are paying for eBay,” and the body contained just a link to this tweet:
— Ryan Cohen (@ryancohen) May 6, 2026

That’s Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s CEO, who has indeed listed a bunch of random items on eBay, claiming it’s to fund the purchase of the entire site. Among the items are some genuinely cool and rare finds, like sealed retro games such as Yoshi’s Cookie and the original Metroid. There’s also a Mario NASCAR hood, a large Master Chief statue, and a Vault Boy statue. Pretty neat, right?

But then there’s a lot of junk too. There’s a plain black GameStop hat and mug—about as generic as it gets. A piece of GameStop carpet, described as “pre-owned” and torn from who-knows-where, is also up for grabs. An ordinary iPhone, a couple of signs from closed GameStop locations, and even a PSA 10 trading card of Donald Trump from his 2016 inauguration are all part of the mix.

Each item comes with a copy of Cohen’s letter to eBay proposing the purchase, complete with his handwritten signature. So, it’s basically a collector’s item featuring a CEO’s autograph.

Surprisingly, people seem to be all over this. Cohen started the listings at just $0.01, and bids are already flooding in. As I write this, the store signs have shot up to over $11,000, and they’ll likely go even higher by the time this is out. The most basic hat is sitting at over $1,000, and the carpet square is also fetching more than $1,000. Sure, some of these bids could be from bots—or even Cohen himself! Who knows?

These auctions have a week to gather bids, and it’s almost certain that prices will skyrocket, putting more cash in Cohen’s pocket. With a net worth estimated at $5.1 billion, Cohen stands to gain a $35 billion payout if he can boost GameStop’s market cap high enough. However, he’s still about $14 billion short of actually buying eBay. As ridiculous as this bidding frenzy is, there’s no way Cohen’s eBay auction will generate the funds he needs. Ultimately, it’s all a publicity stunt—a clever way to engage the meme-loving audience that GameStop has attracted in recent years, inflating stock value to support his plans to issue more shares of GameStop stock.

So, please, don’t hand over thousands of dollars to a billionaire CEO of a struggling gaming retailer, even if it’s for an online auction site. GameStop is closing hundreds of stores each year. You could probably find one and snag a piece of carpet on your way out for free.