Ryan Cohen | $1B+
Get in touch with Ryan Cohen | Ryan Cohen, entrepreneur and activist investor, is best known for founding Chewy and for leading the shareholder-driven transformation of GameStop. After selling Chewy to PetSmart, Cohen took a major stake in GameStop and became chairman, pushing the company to reinvent itself from a declining brick-and-mortar retailer into a more technology-oriented business. Known for intense customer focus, contrarian thinking, and a preference for operating with minimal public commentary, he has become a central figure in modern retail disruption and meme-stock era corporate activism.
Ryan Cohen (born c. 1985) is a Canadian entrepreneur, activist investor, and business executive best known for co-founding the online pet supplies retailer Chewy in 2011, which he scaled to $3.5 billion in annual revenue before its $3.35 billion acquisition by PetSmart in 2017, after which he served as CEO until 2018.[1][1]
Following his exit from Chewy, Cohen shifted to value-oriented investing, acquiring a significant stake in GameStop Corporation by late 2020, which led to his election to the board in January 2021 and appointment as chairman in June 2021; he later assumed the role of executive chairman in June 2023 and was named president and CEO in September 2023, directing the company's pivot toward e-commerce and treasury asset strategies, including a $500 million Bitcoin purchase in 2025.[2][3][4]
Cohen's investment portfolio has included stakes in companies like Bed Bath & Beyond and Alibaba, with his Alibaba holding reaching about $1 billion by early 2025, reflecting a focus on undervalued assets and operational turnarounds informed by his e-commerce experience.[5][6] His leadership at GameStop has been credited with averting insolvency and fostering retail investor engagement, though it has drawn scrutiny amid stock volatility and legal challenges over prior trades.[7][8]
Early life and education
Childhood and early entrepreneurial ventures
Ryan Cohen was born in 1986 in Montreal, Canada, to a Jewish family. His father, Ted Cohen, imported and distributed glassware, exposing the younger Cohen to small-scale business operations from childhood.[9][10]
Around age 13 or 14, Cohen began self-teaching web development and constructing sites for local businesses, with his father as his inaugural client. He canvassed companies door-to-door to secure these gigs, honing practical skills in digital tools and client relations absent any structured training.[11][12][13]
At 15, Cohen initiated his first formal enterprise, generating revenue via affiliate marketing by collecting referral fees from e-commerce platforms. This early experimentation laid groundwork in online traffic generation and sales mechanics, relying on iterative trial-and-error rather than institutional guidance.[12][14]
Formal education and influences
Cohen elected not to pursue higher education, identifying as a college dropout who prioritized entrepreneurial pursuits over formal credentials.[15] His father supported this decision, encouraging focus on practical business skills rather than academic degrees.[10] Cohen has no college degree, viewing self-directed learning as superior for developing real-world competencies in commerce and investment.[16]
Key intellectual influences on Cohen include his father, who operated a glassware business, and investor Warren Buffett, whose value investing principles he adopted through independent study.[17] Cohen has described these two figures as the primary shapers of his professional approach, emphasizing long-term value creation and disciplined capital allocation over speculative trends.[17] He also drew inspiration from activist investor Carl Icahn, integrating elements of corporate restructuring with Buffett-style fundamentals via personal reading and analysis.[18] This self-education enabled Cohen to identify inefficiencies in consumer markets, such as pet supplies, by applying first-hand observations and economic reasoning absent from traditional curricula.[19]
Founding and leadership of Chewy
Inception and initial growth
Chewy.com was co-founded in June 2011 by Ryan Cohen and Michael Day in Dania Beach, Florida, with initial operations focused on delivering pet supplies online to capitalize on an underserved market segment lacking reliable fast shipping and attentive service compared to physical stores. The duo quickly built a functional website, secured a distributor, and partnered with a third-party logistics provider within three months, enabling prompt fulfillment that addressed common e-commerce pain points in the pet industry.[20][21]
From inception, Cohen prioritized customer-centric innovations such as 24/7 U.S.-based phone support and generous policies including easy returns, which were supplemented by personal touches like handwritten thank-you notes and customized pet birthday cards to foster emotional connections and repeat business. These elements empirically differentiated Chewy from commoditized competitors by emphasizing service quality over mere price competition, as evidenced by early customer retention metrics tied to satisfaction surveys and referral rates.[20][22]
Funded initially through personal savings and small loans without venture capital—despite Cohen's pitches to over 100 firms, which were rebuffed amid skepticism from Pets.com's prior collapse—Chewy generated $2 million in sales during 2011 via organic channels including word-of-mouth and targeted online outreach, preserving founder control while proving the viability of its model. This bootstrapped approach avoided dilution but relied on operational efficiency, such as lean inventory management, to achieve profitability thresholds absent heavy marketing spend.[20][23]
By March 2012, annual revenue estimates climbed to $26 million, reflecting accelerated customer acquisition through service-driven loyalty rather than paid acquisition, with repeat orders comprising a growing share of volume as the platform refined its autoship subscription feature for recurring needs like food and medication.[24]
Scaling operations and challenges
From 2013 to 2016, Chewy under Ryan Cohen's leadership expanded its fulfillment infrastructure, opening its first dedicated warehouse in 2013 to support broader product assortments and faster delivery, followed by additional facilities including one in Pennsylvania in 2014.[25][26] This network buildout enabled the company to scale operations amid surging demand, driving annual revenue from roughly $200 million in 2013 to $901 million by 2016, a compound growth reflecting efficient inventory management and customer acquisition.[27][15]
Supply chain bottlenecks, including dependency on external logistics providers, prompted attempts at vertical integration through proprietary warehousing and in-house processes, allowing Chewy to shorten lead times and customize fulfillment for pet-specific perishables.[28] These moves addressed causal vulnerabilities in e-commerce scalability, such as stockouts and shipping delays, which could erode competitive edges in a low-margin sector.[22]
Intense rivalry with Amazon posed a core challenge, as the latter's vast infrastructure and vendor ties dwarfed Chewy's resources, threatening market share in commoditized pet goods.[22] Cohen countered by prioritizing niche customer retention via the Autoship program, which automated recurring orders with discounts, fostering loyalty in a category prone to one-off purchases and yielding over 70% of eventual sales from subscriptions by emphasizing predictable demand over price wars.[29] This data-informed tactic leveraged empirical patterns in pet ownership—repeat needs for food and supplies—to achieve retention superior to broader retail averages, underpinning Chewy's path to unicorn valuation in 2016.[15]
Employee headcount swelled from a handful to thousands during this period, supporting operational ramp-up through hires experienced in high-volume e-commerce from firms like Amazon.[20] Cohen instilled a culture of rigorous execution, frugality, and output-focused discipline—governed by free cash flow constraints rather than expansive perks or non-core initiatives—enabling lean scaling without diluting incentives on core competencies like service speed and reliability.[27] This approach contrasted with emerging corporate norms favoring mandated social programs over pure performance metrics, correlating with Chewy's outsized growth in a competitive landscape.[27]
Acquisition by PetSmart and aftermath
In April 2017, PetSmart agreed to acquire Chewy for $3.35 billion in cash, marking the largest e-commerce acquisition in history at the time.[30] The deal closed on May 31, 2017, with Chewy structured to operate largely as an independent subsidiary under Cohen's continued leadership as CEO, preserving its operational autonomy initially.[31] As Chewy's founder and primary stakeholder, Cohen realized personal proceeds approaching $1 billion from the transaction, reflecting the company's rapid scaling from bootstrapped origins to a dominant online pet retailer.[20]
Tensions emerged soon after the acquisition, as PetSmart—itself burdened by $4.7 billion in debt from a prior leveraged buyout—sought greater integration and cost synergies, clashing with Cohen's emphasis on maintaining Chewy's founder-driven culture and e-commerce focus.[32] On March 15, 2018, Cohen resigned as CEO, citing a desire to pursue personal endeavors, with former Amazon executive Sumit Singh appointed as his successor amid PetSmart's push to absorb Chewy more fully into its operations.[33] This leadership shift underscored broader challenges in the acquisition, including PetSmart's financial strain, which yielded junk-bond spreads exceeding 20% and limited its ability to support Chewy's aggressive growth without diluting its agility.[32]
Chewy's trajectory post-acquisition validated Cohen's strategic vision and timing of the sale. On June 13, 2019, Chewy launched its initial public offering, pricing 46.5 million shares at $22 each and raising over $1 billion, which valued the company at approximately $8.7 billion upon debut—more than doubling the 2017 acquisition price despite the ownership change.[34] Shares surged 64% on opening day to $36, pushing market capitalization above $14 billion and highlighting Chewy's sustained customer loyalty and operational momentum under semi-independent management.[35] The outcome illustrated the perils of bureaucratic oversight in acquisitions, where acquirer debt and integration pressures can constrain founder-led innovation, contrasting with Chewy's pre-sale emphasis on customer-centric scaling that propelled its post-IPO performance.[36] PetSmart's subsequent divestiture via IPO allowed Chewy to regain full independence, but the episode critiqued private equity-driven buyouts for prioritizing short-term leverage over long-term value creation.[37]
Activist investing career
Entry into public markets
Following the April 2017 acquisition of Chewy by PetSmart for $3.35 billion, Ryan Cohen redirected substantial proceeds from the transaction toward public market investments through RC Ventures LLC, the entity he manages for such purposes.[23] [38] By mid-2020, Cohen had allocated the majority of these funds into concentrated positions, including approximately 1.55 million shares of Apple valued at around $550 million and a comparable stake in Wells Fargo, demonstrating an initial emphasis on high-conviction bets in firms with perceived undervaluation despite their scale.[38] [17]
Cohen's approach to these investments embodies a value-oriented philosophy influenced by Warren Buffett, prioritizing thorough operational scrutiny, intrinsic business value over market fluctuations, and long-term holding periods rather than speculative trading.[17] Drawing from his Chewy experience, he targets sectors like retail and technology where inefficiencies in customer acquisition, supply chain management, or digital adaptation present turnaround potential, advocating for management changes to enhance cash flow generation and shareholder returns.[10]
This strategy marked Cohen's transition to activist investing, with RC Ventures building stakes sufficient to influence corporate governance in pursuit of operational reforms. Between 2019 and 2020, Cohen identified opportunities in market environments where retail investor coordination countered aggressive short-selling, viewing such dynamics as a mechanism to expose and correct mispricings in distressed assets.[39]
GameStop campaign (2020–2023)
In August 2020, Ryan Cohen, through his investment vehicle RC Ventures LLC, acquired approximately 9% of GameStop Corp.'s outstanding shares, disclosing the position via a Schedule 13D filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 28.[40][41] The filing included a letter criticizing GameStop's board for complacency amid declining physical retail sales, urging a pivot to e-commerce and digital services modeled on Cohen's prior success with Chewy.com, and highlighting the need for capital allocation toward technology-driven growth rather than legacy store operations.[42] By December 2020, Cohen increased the stake to 12.9%, or about 9 million shares, purchased at an average cost of roughly $8.40 per share, totaling approximately $76 million.[43][44]
Cohen's disclosures coincided with heightened attention from retail investors on platforms like Reddit's r/wallstreetbets subreddit, where users coordinated purchases amid GameStop's high short interest—exceeding 140% of the public float—interpreting the filings as validation of untapped value in the company.[45] This activity catalyzed a sharp stock price surge, with shares rising from under $5 in early 2020 to over $80 by late January 2021, forcing short sellers to cover positions and amplifying gains through a short squeeze dynamic.[46][47] A splinter community, r/Superstonk, emerged to focus on long-term analysis of GameStop's fundamentals, crediting Cohen's activist push as a catalyst for retail empowerment against institutional short bets.[48]
In January 2021, Cohen secured a seat on GameStop's board of directors, joined by two former Chewy executives, enabling direct influence on strategy.[49] From this position through 2022, he advocated for operational reforms, including aggressive cost reductions—such as store closures and overhead trims—and an accelerated e-commerce transition, with initiatives like enhanced online inventory and digital storefronts aimed at capturing gaming collectibles and software markets.[50][51] These moves countered short-seller narratives portraying GameStop as irredeemable, as evidenced by hedge funds like Melvin Capital incurring 53% losses in January 2021 alone, with broader short interests suffering over $5 billion in mark-to-market declines that year due to the price appreciation.[52][47] Citadel Advisors, which provided bailout funding to Melvin and held its own GameStop exposures, faced scrutiny for market-making roles amid the volatility.[53]
Mainstream media outlets often characterized the episode as "meme stock mania" driven by irrational retail speculation, downplaying Cohen's transparent SEC disclosures and framing volatility as evidence of overvaluation despite empirical short covering.[54] However, the hedge fund losses reflected a correction of overcrowded bearish positions, where shorts had bet against a retailer already undergoing activist-led restructuring, with Cohen's filings providing verifiable critiques of prior mismanagement rather than unsubstantiated hype.[55] This period marked Cohen's campaign as a pivotal challenge to Wall Street consensus, prioritizing shareholder-driven accountability over entrenched short interests.
Other notable investments
In March 2022, Ryan Cohen's investment vehicle RC Ventures LLC disclosed beneficial ownership of 9,450,100 shares of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., comprising approximately 9.8% of the company's outstanding common stock.[56] In an accompanying letter to the board, Cohen urged a comprehensive strategic review, including cost reductions, leadership changes, and the potential divestiture of underperforming units such as Buy Buy Baby, while nominating three directors to facilitate operational improvements.[57] RC Ventures sold its entire position between August 15 and 18, 2022, generating a pretax profit of $68.1 million on the investment.[58][59]
The Bed Bath & Beyond exit drew criticism for allegedly contributing to stock volatility through activist pressure followed by rapid liquidation, prompting multiple shareholder class actions accusing Cohen of securities fraud, insider trading, and pump-and-dump schemes.[60] Courts dismissed these claims in June 2024, ruling that the company's subsequent bankruptcy extinguished the plaintiffs' standing, while a related bid for class certification was denied earlier on evidentiary grounds.[61][62] The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the ownership disclosures and sale timing, though no enforcement action has been publicly resolved as of October 2025.[63]
In 2020, Cohen acquired over 562,000 voting securities of Wells Fargo & Company, exceeding the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act's size-of-transaction threshold of $94 million (as adjusted for 2020) without submitting a pre-acquisition notification, as the Federal Trade Commission determined the purchases did not qualify for the "solely for the purpose of investment" exemption due to evidence of influence-seeking intent.[64] He filed a corrective notification on January 14, 2021, and in September 2024 agreed to a $985,320 civil penalty to resolve the violation.[65] Cohen has also taken smaller positions in retail and technology firms, such as a 9.6% stake in Nordstrom Inc. disclosed in February 2023 that temporarily lifted the stock by over 20%, though without subsequent public activism.[66]
GameStop CEO tenure
Appointment and initial strategies
On September 28, 2023, GameStop Corp. elected Ryan Cohen as president and chief executive officer, effective immediately, while retaining his roles as chairman of the board; Cohen had previously ascended to executive chairman in June 2023 following the termination of the prior CEO.[67][2] In this capacity, Cohen committed to forgoing any salary, compensation, or equity grants, positioning his incentives in direct alignment with shareholder value creation rather than personal remuneration.[68][69]
Cohen's initial actions emphasized operational streamlining and governance reform, including an overhaul of the board and executive team to prioritize fiscal discipline and core competencies in video game hardware and software sales.[70] This involved exiting underperforming international markets and non-essential segments, such as planned reductions in collectibles exposure, to refocus on high-margin domestic retail and e-commerce channels.[71] Concurrently, Cohen directed aggressive cost reductions, including corporate layoffs and the closure of underproductive stores, encapsulated in an internal directive for "extreme frugality" to stem ongoing cash burn from legacy operations.[72]
To bolster liquidity amid volatile share prices, Cohen leveraged at-the-market equity offerings, building on prior raises to amass over $1 billion in cash reserves by fiscal year-end 2023, which facilitated debt reduction to minimal levels and supported inventory optimization efforts that curbed excess stock and improved turnover efficiency.[73] These measures yielded tangible financial gains, with gross margins expanding to 26.3% in the second fiscal quarter of 2023 from 24.8% the prior year, and the company achieving net income of $6.7 million for fiscal 2023 versus a $313.1 million loss in 2022.[74][75]
Critics, including short sellers who maintained bearish positions on GameStop's viability, intensified attacks portraying Cohen's strategies as insufficient for long-term transformation; Cohen dismissed such critiques as emblematic of entrenched financial elites resisting the democratization of investment opportunities enabled by retail coordination.[76] Empirical outcomes, however, validated aspects of the approach, as reduced operating expenses and optimized working capital contributed to positive adjusted EBITDA of $64.7 million in fiscal 2023.[75]
Operational turnaround efforts
Upon assuming the CEO role in September 2023, Ryan Cohen prioritized operational efficiencies, including supply chain optimizations and inventory management reductions, which contributed to the company's first quarters of positive free cash flow under his leadership.[77] By Q2 2025, GameStop reported $117.4 million in operating cash flow and $113.3 million in free cash flow, marking five consecutive quarters of positive operating cash flows amid ongoing cost controls and excess inventory liquidation.[78][79]
Cohen directed a strategic pivot toward high-margin product categories such as trading cards and retro gaming collectibles, viewing them as natural extensions of GameStop's core business with superior profitability compared to declining hardware sales.[80] In June 2025, he announced plans to double down on trading cards like Pokémon TCG, citing their high-margin potential amid a broader shift away from over-reliance on video games.[81] This focus yielded tangible results, with collectibles sales surging 63.3% year-over-year in Q2 2025, bolstering overall revenue growth to 21.8% for the quarter at $972.2 million.[82]
Internally, Cohen implemented headcount reductions and cultural reforms emphasizing meritocracy and frugality over prior quota-driven approaches, reducing corporate staff from over 1,400 in 2021 to approximately 400 by 2025 while claiming enhanced productivity.[83] He publicly critiqued "wokeness and DEI" initiatives as misaligned with operational priorities, aligning GameStop's practices against perceived inefficiencies in peer companies reliant on such frameworks.[84] These shifts, detailed in employee memos and earnings communications, supported streamlined operations without salary compensation for Cohen himself.[77]
Store footprint rationalization involved closing over 1,000 locations since 2021, including unprofitable sites, which drew criticism from traditional retail advocates as potentially undermining physical presence and customer access.[82] However, metrics indicate e-commerce expansion and collectibles momentum have compensated, with Q2 2025 net sales increases driven by these channels despite the brick-and-mortar contraction.[85] This approach validated efficacy against legacy overexpansion, as evidenced by sustained cash generation amid sector headwinds.[86]
Financial performance and recent developments (2023–2026)
Under Ryan Cohen's leadership as CEO, GameStop Corp. achieved its first profitable fiscal year since 2019 in fiscal 2024 (ended February 2025), reporting a modest net profit after a $313 million net loss in fiscal 2023, primarily through aggressive cost reductions including executive pay cuts from $55 million to $2 million and Cohen forgoing personal compensation.[87][88] Despite these gains, net sales continued to decline, falling 11% to $5.273 billion in fiscal 2024 from $5.927 billion in fiscal 2023, reflecting ongoing challenges in the retail video game sector amid digital shifts and store closures.[89]
In the first quarter of fiscal 2025 (ended May 2025), GameStop reported net sales of $732.4 million, a 17% decrease from $881.8 million in the prior-year quarter, but swung to a net income of $44.8 million from a $32.3 million net loss, driven by gross margin expansion to 34.5% via inventory optimization and operational efficiencies.[90][91] The company maintained a debt-free balance sheet with approximately $6.4 billion in cash equivalents by mid-2025, bolstered by prior at-the-market equity offerings that raised over $1.5 billion but drew criticism for share dilution impacting retail investors.[92][93]
Recent developments included Cohen's personal investment of $10.78 million to acquire 500,000 additional shares on April 3, 2025, increasing his direct ownership to 37.3 million shares or 8.4% of outstanding shares, signaling confidence amid market skepticism.[94][95] In May 2025, GameStop initiated a Bitcoin treasury strategy by purchasing 4,710 BTC for over $512 million, with no upper limit disclosed, aligning with Cohen's vision for alternative assets to hedge against fiat volatility; however, the announcement coincided with stock declines of up to 19% in subsequent trading sessions.[96][97] GameStop's shares exhibited high volatility in 2025, dropping nearly 30% year-to-date by June amid broader market pressures and dilution concerns, yet retained strong retail holder loyalty, evidenced by sustained trading volumes and positioning as a counter to traditional short-selling narratives.[98][99]
In January 2026, GameStop's board granted CEO Ryan Cohen a performance-based stock option award consisting of options to purchase 171,537,327 shares at $20.66 per share, divided into nine tranches vesting upon achieving market capitalization hurdles from $20 billion to $100 billion and corresponding cumulative performance EBITDA targets from $2 billion to $10 billion. The award includes no salary, cash bonuses, or time-based equity. Effectiveness requires stockholder approval at a special meeting expected in March or April 2026, from which Cohen will recuse himself.[100][101]
Later in January 2026, Cohen stated plans to pursue a major acquisition of a larger publicly traded consumer or retail company to significantly boost GameStop's valuation. This announcement led to investor speculation that potential targets could include Kohl's or Best Buy, citing their undervalued status and retail presence. However, no confirmed rumors, official bids, or reports indicate that GameStop or Cohen is specifically pursuing Kohl's.[102][103]
Publications and investment philosophy
Authored works
Ryan Cohen authored the Harvard Business Review article "The Founder of Chewy.com on Finding the Financing to Achieve Scale," published on January 1, 2020, recounting his pre-Chewy pivot from an online jewelry venture to pet supplies after observing customer pain points in a physical store, followed by bootstrapping initial operations and securing Volition Capital investment by projecting $15 million in first-year sales that were ultimately exceeded.[104] The piece emphasizes practical tactics like leveraging personal insights into consumer needs and demonstrating traction to attract funding without initial heavy reliance on external capital.
On November 16, 2020, Cohen submitted a public letter to GameStop's board via his RC Ventures LLC Schedule 13D filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, distilling e-commerce lessons from Chewy to urge a shift from legacy retail to digital-first operations, including slashing real estate overhead, recruiting software engineers for app development, and prioritizing customer obsession through rapid iteration rather than bureaucratic inertia.[105]
Cohen's formal publications remain sparse following Chewy's 2017 sale, with de facto extensions in targeted shareholder letters and concise social media directives that reinforce anti-bureaucratic execution, such as his September 2023 internal GameStop memo demanding "extreme frugality" to prioritize cash preservation amid transformation.[77] These outputs have guided independent operators by modeling lean, founder-driven scaling that challenges venture capital orthodoxy, evidenced by widespread adoption of his Chewy-derived playbook among solopreneurs in direct-to-consumer niches.
Core principles and public commentary
Cohen advocates for long-term value creation in businesses by prioritizing operational efficiency and eliminating unnecessary expenditures, principles demonstrated in his transformation of underperforming companies. He emphasizes "extreme frugality," scrutinizing every expense to redirect resources toward customer-facing innovations and core competencies, as articulated in his strategic directives following his appointment as GameStop CEO in September 2023.[78] This approach stems from his experience founding Chewy, where he bootstrapped operations using personal credit cards to avoid dilutive intermediaries like venture capital, enabling lean scaling without external dependencies.
In public filings and board communications, Cohen critiques bureaucratic bloat as a barrier to agility, urging firms to streamline structures—such as reducing corporate overhead and excess inventory—to foster sustainable profitability. For instance, in a November 2020 letter to GameStop's board filed with the SEC, he proposed shifting from a legacy retail model to e-commerce efficiency, explicitly addressing high selling, general, and administrative costs that eroded margins. He extends this to skepticism of overreliance on traditional financial intermediaries, favoring direct capital allocation decisions by management over speculative short-selling or analyst-driven narratives, as evidenced by his campaigns exposing misaligned incentives in activist targets.
Cohen's commentary underscores the importance of transparency to counteract market opacity, using SEC disclosures to detail turnaround plans and hold stakeholders accountable, rather than opaque internal maneuvers. He has highlighted how empirical outcomes, such as GameStop's cost reductions leading to its first profitable first quarter since 2019 in Q1 2025, refute myths of inherently efficient markets by illustrating prolonged mispricings correctable through fundamental reforms.[106] This causal focus on verifiable business metrics over short-term speculation differentiates his tactics, prioritizing causal links between efficiency gains and shareholder returns.[78]
Political views and public advocacy
Endorsements and affiliations
Ryan Cohen publicly endorsed Donald Trump for the 2024 U.S. presidential election on July 13, 2024, following an assassination attempt on the former president, by posting a single "TRUMP" on X (formerly Twitter).[107] He reiterated this support on July 17, 2024, by posting the word "TRUMP" 665 consecutive times, a gesture interpreted by observers as emphatic backing amid a wave of endorsements from business figures like Elon Musk.[108] Cohen further affirmed his position on July 18, 2024, ahead of Trump's Republican National Convention speech, stating alignment with the nominee's pro-business orientation.[109]
Following Trump's victory on November 5, 2024, Cohen celebrated the outcome on November 8, 2024, via X, declaring, "Trump has now won 3 elections in a row," referencing the 2016 win, 2020 contest (disputed by Trump allies), and 2024 result.[110] This post aligned with Cohen's broader critique of elite consensus, framing his support as resistance to regulatory overreach and favoritism toward entrenched interests, consistent with Trump's deregulation agenda.[111] No records indicate formal political donations from Cohen to Trump or related PACs, per available campaign finance disclosures.[112]
Cohen maintains loose affiliations with meme stock communities, such as those surrounding GameStop, which exhibit populist financial sentiments challenging Wall Street orthodoxy—echoing anti-establishment themes in Trump's appeal—though he holds no official party roles or organizational ties.[113] Left-leaning commentators have labeled Cohen's online following as "cult-like," citing fervent retail investor loyalty, yet this overlooks empirical alignment on policies like reduced financial regulation, where Trump's platform promised SEC reforms benefiting activist investors like Cohen.[114]
Critiques of corporate governance and culture
Ryan Cohen has critiqued corporate governance practices influenced by progressive ideologies, particularly diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, asserting they prioritize non-meritocratic factors over operational efficiency and shareholder returns. In a February 18, 2025, X post announcing GameStop's divestiture of its Canadian and French operations, Cohen attributed regional underperformance to a confluence of "high taxes, Liberalism, Socialism, Progressivism, Wokeness and DEI included at no additional cost," framing these elements as embedded costs eroding competitiveness.[115] [116] This stance aligns with Cohen's broader rejection of "woke capitalism," where he argues that mandates divert resources from core business functions, fostering inefficiencies observable in firms burdened by compliance overhead.
At Chewy, which Cohen founded in 2011 and scaled to a $8.7 billion initial public offering valuation by June 2019, governance emphasized merit-driven hiring and product innovation over DEI quotas or ESG reporting, enabling revenue growth from $0 to $3.5 billion annually without such frameworks. GameStop, under Cohen's chairmanship from January 2021 and CEO role from September 2023, similarly avoided aggressive DEI adoption, focusing instead on supply chain streamlining and cash preservation; this approach coincided with a market capitalization surge from under $2 billion in early 2021 to peaks exceeding $10 billion amid 2021-2025 transformations, outperforming legacy retail peers like Bed Bath & Beyond, which collapsed amid heavier social mandate integrations. Cohen's firms demonstrate empirical viability of quota-agnostic models, contrasting with data from ESG-heavy sectors where adoption correlates with lagged returns, as seen in a 2023-2024 decline in corporate ESG disclosures amid investor pushback.[117]
Cohen has extended critiques to financial ecosystem distortions, decrying short sellers and consultants as enablers of misgovernance through speculative attacks and bloated advisory fees that undermine merit-based capital allocation. In a March 15, 2022, X post, he likened short sellers to "the dumb stormtroopers of the investing galaxy," implying their incentives foster collusion over genuine analysis.[118] He followed on March 31, 2022, questioning whether "hedge fund short sellers or overpriced consultants" were more reprehensible, highlighting how such actors perpetuate cultural tolerance for value-extractive practices. Regarding media, Cohen has lambasted coverage of meme stock episodes like GameStop's 2021 squeeze as biased toward short interests, arguing it reflects institutional echo chambers that suppress retail investor perspectives and normalize anti-merit narratives.
While advocates for DEI and ESG posit enhancements in talent diversity and risk mitigation—citing studies linking board gender diversity to modest ESG score improvements—Cohen prioritizes causal evidence from operational outcomes, where merit erosion via identity-focused policies aligns with peer underperformance in quota-reliant firms, as evidenced by recent divestitures and valuation gaps.[119] His philosophy underscores first-principles governance: cultures rewarding competence over mandated representation sustain superior long-term viability, a view substantiated by his track record absent regulatory or ideological overlays.
Legal matters
Regulatory investigations and settlements
In September 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled with Ryan Cohen over allegations that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR Act) by failing to submit pre-acquisition notifications for purchases exceeding the then-applicable $100 million threshold in voting securities of Wells Fargo & Company.[64] According to the FTC's complaint, Cohen acquired more than 562,000 Wells Fargo shares through over 20 open-market transactions starting in March 2018, holding less than 10% of the company's outstanding voting securities but allegedly intending to influence its management based on internal emails.[64] [120] The HSR Act mandates such filings to allow antitrust review of potentially anticompetitive acquisitions, disqualifying "investment-only" exemptions if active influence is anticipated, though critics argue the regime imposes undue bureaucratic burdens on individual activist investors pursuing non-controlling stakes without evident market harm.[64] [121]
Under the settlement agreement, filed by the U.S. Department of Justice at the FTC's request, Cohen agreed to pay a $985,320 civil penalty—approximately $928 per day for the roughly three-year violation period from March 2018 to February 2021, when he submitted a corrective filing—without admitting or denying the allegations.[64] [122] This amount fell well below the statutory maximum of $43,792 per day applicable at the time of the corrective filing, reflecting factors like the violation's duration and Cohen's cooperation.[64] The case highlights tensions in HSR enforcement, where passive accumulation by non-corporate investors triggers administrative requirements originally designed for merger scrutiny, potentially deterring legitimate shareholder activism absent clear causal links to reduced competition.[123] [121] No other regulatory investigations or settlements involving Cohen under antitrust or similar administrative laws have been publicly disclosed as of October 2025.[124]
Shareholder disputes and litigation
In 2022, shareholders of Bed Bath & Beyond initiated class action lawsuits against Ryan Cohen and RC Ventures LLC, alleging securities fraud and insider trading in connection with Cohen's acquisition and subsequent sale of the company's stock.[125] [126] The complaints centered on Cohen's purchase of approximately 9.45% of Bed Bath & Beyond's shares and over one million call options between March and August 2022, followed by sales that yielded profits estimated at $47 million to $60 million, purportedly facilitated by a tweet featuring a feces emoji on August 12, 2022, which plaintiffs claimed manipulated retail investors into buying shares to inflate the price.[127] [128] Cohen defended the actions as based solely on publicly disclosed information in his SEC Schedule 13D filings, arguing that the sales reflected a predetermined exit strategy outlined in his August 16, 2022, letter to the board criticizing the company's operations, with no use of material non-public information.[129]
On July 27, 2023, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in the District of Columbia allowed certain securities fraud claims to proceed against Cohen, finding that the emoji tweet and related statements plausibly constituted misleading omissions under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, as they allegedly encouraged purchases without disclosing his intent to sell.[129] However, on June 11, 2024, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil dismissed a separate short-swing profit disgorgement claim under Section 16(b), ruling that Bed Bath & Beyond's April 2023 bankruptcy filing extinguished the company's standing to recover the $47 million, as the estate lacked authority to pursue such remedies post-discharge.[60] In August 2024, the Bed Bath & Beyond bankruptcy estate filed its own action seeking to claw back $47 million in alleged insider trading profits, claiming Cohen breached fiduciary duties as a 10% owner by timing sales around non-public board discussions.[130]
On April 21, 2025, Judge Vyskocil partially denied Cohen's motion to dismiss the estate's suit, dismissing the statutory director-by-equity claim due to lack of formal board affiliation but permitting the beneficial owner claim under Section 16(b) to advance, rejecting arguments that the two-year holding period exempted the trades and noting disputes over matching buy-sell pairs.[131] [132] Cohen countered that empirical trading records and contemporaneous disclosures demonstrated no fraud, with market data reflecting broader meme stock volatility rather than manipulation, and filings showed compliance with reporting requirements absent any intent to defraud.[133] Critics of the suits, including market analysts, have highlighted potential selective enforcement, observing that hedge funds routinely profit from short positions amid asymmetric information without equivalent shareholder challenges, while Cohen's transparent 13D disclosures arguably enhanced market efficiency compared to opaque institutional trading.[134]
Regarding GameStop, proposed class actions against Cohen personally for alleged manipulative disclosures during the 2021 short squeeze were voluntarily dismissed or rejected, with courts citing the episode's market inefficiencies—which undermined the fraud-on-the-market presumption—as precluding certification, alongside evidence that Cohen's SEC filings provided clear notice of his activist strategy without concealing material facts.[135] These outcomes underscored debates over plaintiff incentives in volatile retail-driven markets, where transparency via public filings contrasts with claims of harm, and no empirical evidence of fraud emerged from trading records reviewed in motions to dismiss.[135]
Personal life and wealth
Family and private life
Ryan Cohen was born in 1986 in Montreal, Canada, to a Jewish family; his father, Ted Cohen, imported glassware and served as his primary entrepreneurial influence, while his mother was a teacher.[1][136][7]
Cohen holds Canadian citizenship and resides in Bal Harbour, Florida, where he owns a waterfront mansion purchased in October 2020 through a family trust for approximately $24 million.[1][137]
He keeps his family life private, with limited public information available; Cohen is married and has a son, but he has not disclosed further details about his spouse or children, emphasizing seclusion from media scrutiny.[138][139]
Cohen's philanthropic activities remain largely undisclosed, with no major public foundations or donations prominently attributed to him personally beyond occasional business-linked efforts.[4]
Net worth and asset management
Ryan Cohen's net worth is estimated at $4.6 billion as of May 2025, primarily derived from the $1 billion in proceeds he received from the 2017 sale of Chewy to PetSmart for $3.35 billion, which he subsequently deployed into investments including a substantial stake in GameStop.[140] [38] His GameStop holdings, valued at around $824 million as of October 22, 2025 based on 37.3 million shares, constitute a significant portion of his wealth but are subject to the company's stock volatility.[141] Earlier estimates, such as Forbes' $3.2 billion figure from September 2023, reflect fluctuations tied to GameStop's market performance, with Cohen maintaining long-term positions signaling conviction in the company's transformation over speculative trading.[142]
Cohen oversees his portfolio through RC Ventures LLC, his activist investment vehicle established for targeted stakes in underperforming retailers, emphasizing cash-rich positions and opportunistic acquisitions to drive value.[57] At GameStop, where he serves as CEO and chairman, Cohen receives no salary, bonus, or equity grants, forgoing compensation entirely to demonstrate "skin in the game" via personal capital outlays exceeding $106 million in company shares purchased outright.[68] [143] This approach aligns his incentives directly with shareholder returns, prioritizing operational efficiency and balance sheet strength over traditional executive pay structures.
Disclaimer: This profile is based on publicly available information. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.
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