Walmart CEO Retires, US Head to Lead Retailer Into AI Age

Walmart Inc. Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon, who over a decade ushered the big-box behemoth into the Internet age, will retire in February. He’ll be replaced by US head John Furner — long viewed as the heir apparent. Bloomberg's Jen Bartashus joins to discuss with Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu.

Walmart Inc. Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon, who over a decade ushered the big-box behemoth into the Internet age, will retire in February. He’ll be replaced by US head John Furner — long viewed as the heir apparent.

Furner, 51, takes over as Walmart faces a fast-moving shift toward artificial intelligence, an uneven US economy, and a rapidly changing global workforce. The company recently inked a partnership with OpenAI, which will allow shoppers to directly make purchases through ChatGPT. The retailer has said automation has helped it keep headcount steady at about 2 million employees globally.

Investors were initially rattled by the change at the top, with the company’s shares sliding as much as 3.6% on Friday. They pared those losses and were trading down 1% as of 12:15 p.m. in New York.

“Walmart is closing out its chapter associated with building a well-rounded digital foundation, and is now moving into the escalation and acceleration of AI,” Mizuho analyst David Bellinger said.

McMillon — who became CEO in 2014 — said he had worked with Furner for 20 years and that his leadership would take the company to the “next-level.” Furner is “uniquely capable of leading the company through this next AI-driven transformation,” he said.

Like McMillon, 59, Furner has spent decades at the world’s largest retailer. His father also worked at Walmart, and he grew up on farms in Arkansas before starting at the company as a part-time worker in the garden center at a Bentonville supercenter.

“I’ve been around the company since I was three years old,” Furner told Bloomberg News in an interview earlier this year.

The new chief has also been “intimately involved” in Walmart’s increasing use of technology and AI, according to Truist Securities analyst Scot Ciccarelli, and now his task is “to continue to execute against the game plan they have already put in place.”

During a town hall meeting on Friday, McMillon received multiple standing ovations from staffers, according to people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. When asked if he planned to run for president of the US — a nod to McMillon’s active involvement in Washington across multiple administrations — he told employees there was “zero chance,” these people said.

Furner joined McMillon on stage at Sam Walton Hall, a 200,000-square-foot building at the company’s new sprawling headquarters. He promised to meet with global teams and immediately dive into the depths of the global business.

“As we head into the holiday season, my priority is leading the US segment to a strong finish,” Furner said in a memo to employees reviewed by Bloomberg News.

He said he was excited to “guide us through this next era” and that he was “focused on supporting a seamless leadership transition for the year ahead.”

Walmart said Furner’s new compensation hasn’t yet been set.

The company, which often rotates senior executives around its big divisions, said it will announce Furner’s successor before the end of the 2026 fiscal year. Walmart’s US business is the retailer’s crown jewel with hundreds of billions of dollars in sales, making the chief of the division a crucial role.

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