Shares of eBay are soaring before the opening bell Monday as Ryan Cohen's GameStop pursues an approximately $56 billion takeover of the company, seeing it as a vehicle to compete with online retail giant Amazon.
The national gaming retailer said that its approximately 1,600 U.S. stores could become drop-off and shipping locations. One proposal includes live sales broadcasts from GameStop locations featuring eBay products.
“EBay has the second largest commerce franchise and there’s a big opportunity to do something much larger,” Cohen said in a CNBC interview Monday.
GameStop's bid is $125 per share in cash and stock. The equity value of the proposed deal is $55 billion on paper.
EBay confirmed the huge bid on Monday and said that it has had no talks with GameStop or received any outreach from the company before it received the proposal.
The company's board, along with financial and legal advisors, will review the offer and determine what course of action to take, eBay said.
GameStop said that it started accumulating shares in eBay beginning in February and currently has a 5% stake.
The company is looking to lower costs at eBay, saying that the online seller spent $2.4 billion on sales and marketing in fiscal 2025 while only adding 1 million net active buyers. GameStop says it will achieve $2 billion in annualized cost cuts within a year of the proposed transaction's closing.
Cohen, who owns about 9% of GameStop, would serve as CEO of the combined company. He would only be compensated based on the combined company's performance.
Cohen became CEO of GameStop in 2023. At the time the position had become a rotating door with the company trying to survive as streaming upended the gaming industry. GameStop became one of the most well-known meme stocks to create a frenzy among retail traders on Wall Street. The company’s shares took off in 2021 after a band of smaller-pocketed investors helped boost its stock by 1,000% in two weeks.
GameStop shares have fallen since then, but are still up more than 30% this year.
Shares of eBay jumped more than 7% in premarket trading, while GameStop's stock declined nearly 3%.
FILE - A GameStop sign is displayed above a store in Urbandale, Iowa, on Jan. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — He had met his 6-year-old son only once. A few days together in a life otherwise spent apart.
For 15 years, Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun worked in Saudi Arabia, sending money home to his family in one of the poorest areas of Bangladesh. This year, he had planned to return, build a larger house with his savings and spend time with the child he barely knew.
Then, on March 8, a missile struck his workers’ camp. He suffered severe burns and later died. He was among more than two dozen foreign workers killed across the Mideast after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February.
Tens of millions of foreign workers have helped build the Gulf Arab states' modern, oil-fueled economies — with many not fully sharing in their prosperity. Now they face an even sharper dilemma: Keep working in the Mideast, where wages are far higher, hoping that a shaky ceasefire endures; or return to already poor countries where prices have soared because of the conflict.
Mamun's choice was made for him. He arrived home in a coffin earlier this month.
“We don’t know what we will do next,” said his widow, Sadia Islam Sarmin.
Migrant workers make up a majority of the population in many Gulf Arab states. Westerners, Arabs and Indians dominate business and finance, while laborers from poor countries in Asia and Africa toil for long hours in scorching temperatures at oil facilities and construction sites — often with few protections.
The Coalition for Labour Justice for Migrants in the Gulf, an advocacy group, says few had access to bomb shelters and many were stranded by the conflict. It says attacks killed at least 24 foreign workers in the Gulf and four in Israel as Iran and allied armed groups launched waves of missile and drones strikes. Their count includes eight mariners killed at sea.
“It’s a very precarious situation for migrant workers,” said Udaya Wagle, who studies labor and migration at the Northern Arizona University.
A ceasefire was announced in early April, but negotiations to end the war have repeatedly stalled. Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil and gas, and says it will only reopen it if the war ends and the U.S. lifts its blockade.
The resulting spike in the price of gas, fertilizer and other goods has hit Asian countries particularly hard.
Remittances from the Gulf make up about 1% of the gross domestic product of India, 3% to 5% of the GDP in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka; and nearly 10% in Nepal. Now they are more vital than ever, as household incomes are strained and governments seek foreign currency to buy oil and gas.
The Gulf economies also face a bleak outlook, with exports bottled up and key energy facilities in need of repair after missile strikes. The fighting could resume, as Iran rejects U.S. President Donald Trump 's demands.
Mamun's family awoke on March 9 to phone calls saying the 35-year-old had been hurt. Video footage shot by another worker showed him sitting in the open, badly burned and bleeding, crying out for help.
“He never imagined he would be hurt. That a missile would fall on him,” said Maruf Hasain, his younger brother.
Workers like Mamun are the most vulnerable since they do the “most dirty, dangerous and difficult” jobs, said Shariful Islam Hasan of the Bangladeshi development organization BRAC.
In Qatar, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi factory worker labored through 12-hour shifts as missiles flew overhead. Shrapnel from one strike fell near his living quarters. When alarms sounded, he said, workers went to a designated room.
He earns less than $400 monthly and sends two-thirds home. “We have no choice but to keep working,” he said on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the authorities.
Qatar enacted several reforms in the run-up to hosting the 2022 World Cup, including the partial dismantling of a system that tied workers to their employers. But activists say abuses are still widespread and that workers have few avenues to pursue justice.
Ahmed al-Aliyli, a taxi driver in Qatar, has not sent money home to his family in Egypt for two months. He once earned as much as $3,000 a month but his income has plunged to a third of that as the war has disrupted travel. “We are the collateral damage of this war,” he said.
A slowdown in key sectors like real estate and construction will hit migrant workers directly, said Hasan of BRAC. Workers from Bangladesh and Pakistan are especially vulnerable, as they are often employed informally and without fixed contracts, he said.
Despite reforms in some countries, work permits are also often tied to a single employer and, in some cases, workers are effectively stranded, according to the labor coalition. It warned that some employers may use the conflict to withhold wages, deny leave or carry out arbitrary dismissals.
When the war began, Mamun’s mother, Shahida Khatun, urged him to come home.
He had been saving up since November. In his last call home, he promised his younger brother and sisters he would pay for their studies, that he would build a larger house for his parents and return for good this spring.
Now, his family is struggling to recover his wages and piece together a life without him.
“The pain of losing a child. There are no words to describe the agony,” Khatun said.
For many workers, going home would mean giving up a steady income and much higher wages.
Marlene Flores, a Filipina worker in Qatar, said she felt the shudder each time a missile was intercepted. But the tax-free pay and health insurance made it feel safer — in a way — than the Philippines, which has declared a ″ national energy emergency.”
“It’s not easy for me to say,” she admitted, “But I would really stay here.”
Israel also has a large population of foreign workers. Filipino caregiver Jeremiah Supan continued caring for his two elderly charges despite near-daily missile alerts, sometimes dashing out for food or medicine despite the danger. He questions whether his own family could survive if he returns to the Philippines.
“I know that in the blink of an eye, one can die,” he said. “But what life shall we return to?”
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Shahida Khatun's last name on second reference.
Gomez reported from Manila, Philippines. Associated Press writers Al Emrun Garjon in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sam Magdy in Cairo, and Eileen Ng from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.
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Sahidul Islam, center, the father of Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun, stands with his relatives in Rasulpur village, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, Friday, April 17, 2026.(AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
Shahida Khatun, mother of Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun, sits beside her son's grave in Rasulpur village, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
Sadia Islam Sarmin, wife of Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun touches the forehead of her son at the doorway of their home in Rasulpur village, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
Sadia Islam Sarmin, the wife of Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun, shows a photo of her late husband and their son on a mobile phone in Rasulpur village, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
Maruf Hasan, brother of Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun comforts his mother, Shahida Khatun, as she weeps at their home in Rasulpur village in Mymensingh district, Bangladesh, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Rajib Dhar)
