GameStop closed off 2025 with its chaotic Trade Anything Day, and after that marketing campaign, it was business as usual: They kicked off 2026 by closing hundreds of stores in the U.S. According to the GS Closing blog, over 450 stores saw closures in January 2026 alone. Now, CEO Ryan Cohen tells The Wall Street Journal that he wants to acquire a different publicly traded company to help grow GameStop.
Cohen told WSJ that the acquisition would be “big”, but the following full quote doesn’t exactly exude confidence:
“It’s ultimately either going to be genius or totally, totally foolish.”
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Yeah, if you’re an employee or involved with Gamestop in any way, that’s not something you’ll necessarily be happy to hear from the CEO. But the announcement did achieve something: it pushed GameStop’s share price up by 3.7%, at the time of writing.
The Truth Behind This Sudden Bold Announcement
There’s a reason Ryan Cohen is trying to make such a big splash with this ominous announcement: he stands to benefit the most. As the owner of more than 9% of shares in the company, the CEO is GameStop’s biggest individual shareholder. Earlier in the month, the board tasked Cohen with increasing GameStop’s market value from $11 billion to a whopping $100 billion.
If successful, Cohen receives a long-term performance package that’s worth up to $35 billion. Of course, most of that amount would be tied to stock options and equity milestones rather than a liquid cash salary (though that would also likely be in the tens of millions). According to Forbes, Cohen already has a net worth of around $5.3 billion.
Now, the journey to a $100 billion market cap is gargantuan. Analysts point out that Cohen might use GameStop’s liquid cash reserves (estimated at around $9 billion) to acquire a high-growth, publicly traded company. It’s a high-stakes gamble of financials; Cohen wants to expand to other sectors, rather than just having GameStop sell more used games for its remaining existence. Surprisingly, the company hasn’t gone the way of Blockbuster, though the store closures are very similar. Time will tell if the CEO succeeds.
