eBay

What eBay Actually Is

eBay runs a marketplace, not a store. Its revenue comes from transaction fees, promoted-listing advertising, and a growing set of financial and shipping services layered on top of the seller experience, rather than from selling goods on its own account. For the full year 2024, eBay reported net revenue of about $10.3 billion, up 2 percent year over year, and GAAP net income from continuing operations of roughly $2.0 billion.¹² The business is overwhelmingly a single segment: its Marketplace operation accounts for essentially all of its reported revenue.³ Jamie Iannone served as chief executive through this period, with Steve Priest as chief financial officer.¹ In early 2026 eBay became a takeover target: GameStop, led by activist investor Ryan Cohen, took a roughly 5 percent stake in February 2026 and in May 2026 made an unsolicited offer of $125 per share, valuing eBay at roughly $55.5 billion, which eBay's board rejected as neither credible nor attractive.⁴ Cohen has since signaled he may take the offer directly to eBay shareholders.⁴

The Cyberstalking Case That Defined eBay's Last Five Years

One of the most serious legal episodes in eBay's recent history has nothing to do with political donations. In 2019, a group of eBay employees, including members of its corporate Safety and Security team, ran a harassment campaign against David and Ina Steiner, a Massachusetts couple who published EcommerceBytes, a newsletter whose coverage of eBay executives sometimes drew the company's ire.⁵ Federal prosecutors said the campaign included anonymous deliveries of disturbing items, in-person surveillance, threatening messages, and attempts to intimidate the couple into silence, with employees later deleting evidence and misleading police.⁵⁶

In January 2024, eBay entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice, admitted to the conduct, and agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty tied to charges including stalking, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.⁶ The company was also required to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years.⁶ Seven former employees pleaded guilty to stalking-related charges.⁵ The Steiners' separate civil lawsuit against eBay, which they framed as a fight to keep corporations from suppressing critics' First Amendment rights, was settled in February 2026, days before a scheduled trial, on terms the parties did not disclose.⁷⁸ eBay has stated that it took responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees and described their conduct as wrong.⁷

Where the Money Goes

eBay's political spending is modest for a company its size and runs through conventional corporate channels. According to OpenSecrets, organization-affiliated contributions in the 2024 election cycle totaled about $359,558, and eBay's corporate PAC raised about $167,029 over the 2023-2024 cycle.⁹¹⁰ The company reported about $2.05 million in federal lobbying for 2024.⁹ Among 2024 congressional-candidate recipients, the money split about 62 percent to Democrats ($101,314) and 38 percent to Republicans ($61,796), a tilt toward Democratic recipients.⁹ Like most large corporate PACs, eBay's giving tends to follow committee and leadership access rather than a single ideological program, and the dollar amounts are small relative to its $10 billion in revenue.

The Union eBay Closed

TCGplayer, a trading-card marketplace eBay acquired, was the first and only eBay-owned operation to unionize, when its Syracuse, New York authentication center voted to organize with the Communications Workers of America in 2022.¹¹ After more than 600 days of bargaining without a first contract, eBay announced in May 2025 that it would close the Syracuse center and move the work to a facility in Kentucky, a right-to-work state, cutting roughly 220 jobs at the unionized facility.¹²¹¹ The CWA called the move retaliatory union-busting and filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board; the union later ratified a closing agreement with improved severance.¹²¹¹ New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, representing city pension funds as an eBay shareholder, publicly pressured the company over the closure and urged it to reach a collective bargaining agreement.¹³ eBay has stated that it takes the wellbeing and safety of its workers seriously.¹¹

"Be for Everyone": Where eBay Has Not Retreated

In a stretch when many large public companies softened or dropped diversity language, eBay's official investor materials kept it. The company's 2025 proxy-season filings continued to describe a "Be for Everyone" program and an explicit commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging, naming it among the priorities the board oversees.¹⁴¹⁵ eBay has stated that it aims to build a workplace where every employee feels valued, and its board-composition disclosures highlight gender and racial or ethnic diversity among directors.¹⁴¹⁵ These are the company's own characterizations of its policies, reported here as statements of what eBay says about itself rather than as outside assessments.

Taking a Side on Russia

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, eBay joined the wave of Western companies that pulled back from the Russian market, suspending all transactions involving Russian addresses in March 2022 and saying it stood with Ukraine.¹⁶ In its own quarterly filing, eBay said it waived seller fees for Ukrainian sellers, protected them from late-shipment and feedback penalties, matched employee donations to Ukraine relief, and launched a "Give at Checkout" campaign for buyers to donate to relief organizations.¹⁷ These were operational and stated-values decisions rather than partisan political ones, but they put the company publicly on one side of a major geopolitical conflict.

Founding and Leadership

eBay was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar and grew into one of the defining e-commerce platforms of the early internet. It is a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: EBAY) headquartered in San Jose, and it spun off PayPal as a separate public company in 2015, sharpening its focus on the core marketplace. Its current board and executive team run the business as a single marketplace segment with a growing advertising and financial-services overlay.¹³

Omidyar no longer runs eBay, but his personal political profile is one of the more notable things about the company's origins. Through his Democracy Fund and its affiliated Democracy Fund Voice, which he solely funds, Omidyar has committed more than $500 million in grants since 2014 to groups working on elections, journalism, and what the foundation describes as strengthening democracy.¹⁸ He gave $100,000 to an anti-Trump super PAC in 2016 and has made six-figure donations to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees over the years, and conservative research groups have catalogued his funding of a wide range of left-of-center organizations.¹⁹ Omidyar is also the financial founder of First Look Media, the venture he launched with a $250 million pledge in 2013, whose best-known publication is the investigative outlet The Intercept; he funded First Look with roughly $90 million between 2013 and 2017.²⁰ This is the founder's personal activity, distinct from the company's own corporate political spending, and Omidyar holds no operating role at eBay today.

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. eBay Inc., "eBay Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results," February 2025. investors.ebayinc.com. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. eBay Inc. 2024 Form 10-K (net revenues $10,283 million; operating income $2,318 million; operating margin 22.5%), via SEC EDGAR. ↩

3. eBay 2024 results and 10-K segment reporting (Marketplace as sole reported revenue segment). ↩ ↩²

4. CNBC and The Wall Street Journal reporting on GameStop's 5 percent stake (February 2026) and $125-per-share offer for eBay (about $55.5 billion in equity value, reported by some outlets as roughly $56 billion) and the board's rejection, May 2026; eBay SEC filings related to the proposal. ↩ ↩²

5. Fox Business and CBS News reporting on the eBay cyberstalking case and guilty pleas of seven former employees, January 2024. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Patch / U.S. Department of Justice, eBay deferred prosecution agreement and $3 million criminal penalty, January 2024. ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. U.S. News / Associated Press, "A Settlement Is Reached in a Case Tied to eBay's Bizarre Deliveries and Harassment Campaign," February 25, 2026. ↩ ↩²

8. CBS News, civil trial timeline and Steiner statements, 2024-2025. ↩

9. OpenSecrets, eBay Inc. organization profile (2024 cycle contributions $359,558; 2024 lobbying $2,050,000). ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. OpenSecrets, eBay Inc. PAC profile (2023-2024 cycle, $167,029 raised). ↩

11. Local Syracuse and CNY Central reporting on the TCGplayer Syracuse closure, roughly 220 layoffs, Kentucky relocation, and ratified closing agreement, May to June 2025. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

12. Communications Workers of America, statement on eBay/TCGplayer Syracuse closure and NLRB unfair labor practice charge, 2025. ↩ ↩²

13. Office of the New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander statement on eBay's closure of the unionized Syracuse facility, June 2, 2025. ↩

14. eBay Inc. Form DEFA14A, FY2025, "Be for Everyone" and diversity, inclusion, and belonging commitment, via SEC EDGAR. ↩ ↩²

15. eBay Inc. Form DEF 14A, FY2024, board diversity and DE&I disclosures, via SEC EDGAR. ↩ ↩²

16. Cox Media Group / NBC Bay Area reporting on eBay suspending transactions involving Russian addresses, March 2022. ↩

17. eBay Inc. Form 8-K, Q1 2022 earnings exhibit (Ukrainian seller fee waivers, employee donation matching, "Give at Checkout"), via SEC EDGAR. ↩

18. Democracy Fund, "Who We Are" (Pierre Omidyar sole funder; $500 million-plus in grants committed since 2014), democracyfund.org. ↩

19. Center for Public Integrity (2016 anti-Trump super PAC donation) and Capital Research Center / InfluenceWatch profiles of Pierre Omidyar and Democracy Fund cataloguing Democratic and left-of-center giving. ↩

20. Columbia Journalism Review and Axios reporting on Pierre Omidyar founding First Look Media with a $250 million pledge in 2013 and funding it with roughly $90 million between 2013 and 2017; The Intercept as its best-known publication. ↩