GameStop has fired its CEO: from NFTs to merchandising, it hasn’t nailed one

GameStop has fired CEO Matt Furlong, it announced as part of its Q1 2023 results on Wednesday. An immediate replacement is not expected at this time, although the chairman of the board, Ryan Cohen, has been named executive chairman, the company said in a brief press release on Furlong’s firing.

Cohen, founder of e-commerce site Chewy , had invested in several ” meme stocks,” including GameStop and Bed Bath & Beyond. His surprise sale of Bed Bath & Beyond shares in 2022 garnered public attention, leading to at least one lawsuit accusing him of inflating the stock’s value, then dumping it. A practice which, in jargon, is referred to by the name pump and dump. His initial investment in GameStop, which in early 2021 led to a huge increase in share value and contributed to his status as a “memestock”.

Matthew Furlong was fired on June 5 for no specific reason. Furlong joined GameStop in June 2021, following the onset of the chaos generated by the company’s sudden and skyrocketing share value. It was Furlong who steered the company into uncharted places, such as investments in NFTs , which however proved to be a colossal hole in the water. Furlong also spearheaded the recent large-scale layoffs that left thousands of employees at home.

Furlong joins GameStop after eight years at Amazon, where he was the head of operations in Australia.