"Game Down" investor sold GameStop stock after offering to buy eBay

Michael Burry, known as the prototypical character from the movie "The Game Down," announced on his Cassandra Unchained blog on May 4 that he had completely sold shares of retailer GameStop from his portfolio.

He announced the closing on the same day that GameStop offered to buy out eBay's Marketplace for $56 billion, including a loan. The amount offered is about five times the retail chain's own capitalization. Against the backdrop of the offer, GameStop's shares fell by 10% during the day, while eBay's capitalization rose by 5%.

Burry said he owned GameStop shares, and bought them, in January 2026. At the time, he backed CEO Ryan Cohen, who announced his intention to turn GameStop into a conglomerate worth more than $100 billion. Burry saw this as an attempt to replicate Warren Buffett's strategy at Berkshire Hathaway: to use a stagnant business as a shell for capital formation and large-scale deals.

The investor speculated that as part of his strategy, Cohen might acquire online retailer Wayfair, insurance company Assured Guaranty or security systems maker ADT - all of which are smaller than GameStop in terms of capitalization. An ambitious plan to buy eBay he did not rate. Earlier on Ma. 4, Burry wrote on his blog that even if Cohen "by some miracle" buys eBay, the combined company would face risks from increased debt. According to his calculations, the final price of a possible deal would be above $56 billion, and the debt load of the combined company could grow to 7.7 EBITDA. The investor considers this level to be close to problematic: it reduces the company's ability to invest and deprives the business of flexibility.

"No matter how you look at it, the 'instant Berkshire' thesis has never been compatible with a debt-to-EBITDA ratio above 5x," Burry wrote, commenting on the position closing.

In 2021, GameStop became the focus of retail traders coordinating their trades on a Reddit forum. They hyped the company's stock by 2,728%, forcing hedge funds shorting it to record billions of dollars in losses.

In turn, Burry was one of the first investors to believe in Gamestop, Bloomberg wrote. He invested about $15 million in the retailer in 2019, but exited just 1.5 months before the "meme rally" began. In late 2025, he wrote on his blog that if he had stayed in the position until now, it would now be worth $250 million.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor