Billionaire Takes Over As GameStop CEO, Bullish For Dogecoin?

Billionaire investor Ryan Cohen has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GameStop, a brick-and-mortar video game retailer in the United States, a move that could potentially impact Dogecoin. GameStop’s stock and the Dogecoin price have shown signs of correlation.

Before assuming this role, Cohen had been the Executive Chairman of GameStop since January 2022 and remained the largest shareholder. The experienced investor takes over in what analysts said is an attempt by the board to turn around the fortunes of the public company.

In this role, Cohen takes over as the President, Chief Executive, and Chairman of GameStop, representing a move to overhaul and possibly revive the company’s leadership structure. While he assumes several positions, reports indicate that the billionaire won’t receive a salary. 

Following news of Cohen’s announcement, GameStop prices surged 10%. Analysts interpret this expansion as confidence in the experienced investor’s capability and even genuine commitment to sparking a turnaround following challenges in 2022 and the shifting landscape that has seen sales in brick-and-mortar stores fall. 

The appointment is bullish for GameStop because Cohen is one of the largest shareholders. From September 2020, the billionaire started accumulating aggressively through to December 2020. 

The billionaire publicly supported a stock that hedge funds had ignored, as they were betting on a video game retailer to go bankrupt. However, in January 2021, due to a “short squeeze,” GameStop’s stock prices surged by 1,500% as retailers jumped on board, causing the stock to reach around $81.

The sharp expansion of GameStop in January due to FOMO and retailers banking on a “meme stock” bear the same characteristics as the sudden rally of Dogecoin in the first half of 2021. At peaks, Dogecoin soared to as high as $0.78 as support from Elon Musk, the world’s richest entrepreneur, pumped the coin to record levels.

The CEO of X openly expressed support for DOGE, even appearing on Sunday Night Live (SNL) as the “Doge Master.”

Beyond Elon Musk, Dogecoin’s status as the first meme coin and its alignment with the broader trend of meme stocks rallying in early 2021, driven chiefly by online communities and social media, fueled DOGE prices.

DOGE prices have since cooled off, falling by over 80% as bears pressed on, reversing the project’s huge valuations. Even so, supporters remain bullish, expecting the meme coin to recover in the sessions ahead. 

It remains to be seen if Elon Musk will continue tweeting frequently about DOGE. The billionaire is being sued in New York for allegedly promoting Dogecoin as a “get-rich-quick” scheme. The lawsuit claims that Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX were involved in a “racketeering conspiracy” to support DOGE.