Walmart Joins Microsoft In TikTok Push
• Suddenly there’s an unlikely new player jumping into the already crowded field with the intention of acquiring massively popular social media app TikTok — retail behemoth Walmart (no, seriously) has now teamed up with Microsoft in its campaign to acquire TikTok’s operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to CNBC, the first outlet to report the news.
As seen in a report in TheWrap.com, the retail juggernaut didn’t offer many details on how it would integrate with TikTok, but its sudden interest has surfaced as TikTok appears to be racing towards a deal in the near future. Earlier Thursday morning, TheWrap reported that Larry Ellison’s Oracle had taken the lead position to acquire TikTok’s assets in a deal worth more than $20 billion.
A Walmart rep told CNBC that the company would help evolve TikTok’s e-commerce and advertising business if a deal was struck, adding it would be a “clear benefit” to creators and users. “We believe a potential relationship with TikTok U.S. in partnership with Microsoft could add this key functionality and provide Walmart with an important way for us to reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow our third-party marketplace and advertising businesses,” the Walmart rep told CNBC. “We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of U.S. TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of U.S. government regulators.”
This new wrinkle comes about 12 hours after Kevin Mayer, the former Disney executive, stepped down as TikTok’s CEO after only four months on the job. TikTok’s push to close a deal with a U.S. firm has been accelerated after President Trump, claiming “credible evidence” that the app “poses a national security threat,” signed an executive order giving TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, just 90 days to offload its Western assets. That deadline is fast approaching in mid-September.
