After quadrupling the market value, it was handed over! Walmart (WMT.US) Meritorious CEO Macmillan Announces Retirement in 2026

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Doug McMillon (Doug McMillon), the current CEO of American retail giant Walmart (WMT.US), is about to step down as CEO of the company. According to the latest internal statement, he will retire on January 31, 2026. Needless to say, over the past 12 years, Macmillan has led Walmart, an established American retail giant, to extraordinary success. During his tenure, Walmart's overall market value increased by an astonishing four times, and the stock price also rose sharply by 400% in the past 10 years, which is more than double the increase in the S&P 500 index over the same period.

Walmart has appointed John Furner (John Furner) to replace Macmillan as the new CEO, and the appointment will take effect on February 1, 2026. Furner joined the company as a part-time employee at Walmart more than 30 years ago. Since 2019, he has been the president and CEO of Walmart's US market, managing the retail company's largest business segment and more than 4,600 physical stores worldwide.

Macmillan will remain on Walmart's board of directors until next June, and will serve as Furner's personal advisor throughout the 2027 fiscal year.

The specific candidate who will succeed Furner as CEO of Walmart in the US market will be announced later. Walmart's stock price fell more than 3% after the latest personnel changes were announced.

Walmart's latest major personnel change is undoubtedly to find a steady successor to Walmart's newly formulated “long-term digital trend+AI management transformation route”, that is, to select a new internal helmsman familiar with the front line and capable of implementing long-term AI technology transformation on the CEO as a core personnel change.

Walmart recently announced its latest partnership with OpenAI. The core is to upgrade the shopping portal from a “search box” to an “AI conversation agent”; after the two parties announce this major partnership, Walmart flagship supermarket customers and Sam's Club (Sam's Club) platform subscribers will be able to directly select products and place orders in ChatGPT to achieve “chat and buy (buy while chatting).

What Walmart is now investing in transformation and betting on is not an “AI plug-in,” but a “next-generation e-commerce market paradigm dominated by AI agents/AI agents.” ChatGPT is a key entry point into its external “artificial intelligence+shopping ecosystem.”

As Walmart and Target (TGT.US) release their latest results next week, investors will be able to take a very close look at the consumer spending performance of American consumers under the global tariff system led by US President Trump. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the US GDP. Over the past few years, strong consumer spending resilience has also helped drive the S&P 500 index to set historic records one after another.