BENTONVILLE, Ark — Walmart said late Sunday (Sept. 13) in a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission the retail and technology giant remains interested in TikTok, although a partnership offer with Microsoft is off the table.
“Walmart continues to have an interest in a TikTok investment and continues discussions with ByteDance leadership and other interested parties. We know that any approved deal must satisfy all regulatory and national security concerns,” the company noted in its statement.
Microsoft confirmed it was out of the deal in a statement on its website.
“ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users while protecting national security interests,” according to the Microsoft note.
The statements came on the heels of news reports TikTok had agreed to a deal with Oracle leaving Microsoft and Walmart out of the loop. No official deal has been reported or confirmed. The bone of contention around ByteDance selling to other technology companies is that the deal for TikTok will not include any of the video sharing platform’s source code information. This seems to indicate any deal with Walmart would likely be a partnership, perhaps with Oracle, with an investment in TikTok instead of out an outright acquisition.
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