Mark Zuckerberg said in a facebook post on Monday that Meta had added Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, and two other executives to its board of directors.
Meta is adding White, a longtime friend of President-elect Donald J. Trump, to the social media company's leadership amid a series of moves to strengthen its ties with the incoming administration. Last week, the company reshuffled the top of its policy team and named a longtime executive known for his Republican ties as head of global policy. Meta has also donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.
In recent years, White and Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, have bonded over their passion for professional fighting, including mixed martial arts, which Zuckerberg returned to in 2022.
“Dana is the president and CEO of UFC, and has built it into one of the most valuable, fastest-growing and most popular sports companies in the world,” Zuckerberg said in his post. “I admire him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”
In 2023, White attempted to broker a fight between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of x, Tesla and SpaceX. Musk, who has become a close Trump ally, eventually bowed out of the battle, citing an old injury. He claimed that Zuckerberg was to blame for not being available to fight later.
Meta, which owns facebook, instagram and WhatsApp, created three new board seats for appointments, bringing the total number to 13. Zuckerberg said the company had also added John Elkann, chief executive of Exor, a holding company. based in Europe. who controls Jeep and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a technology investor who previously worked at Microsoft and recently advised Meta on artificial intelligence projects.
“We have enormous opportunities ahead in ai, wearables, and the future of social media, and our board of directors will help us achieve our vision,” Zuckerberg wrote.
In recent years, Meta has begun making wearable technology, such as gaming headsets and camera-equipped sunglasses. It is also competing in a global ai race, launching its own generative system with “open source” code so anyone can freely copy, modify and reuse it.
Meta has faced harsh Republican criticism for its content moderation on its social media platforms, which Trump and others say amounts to censorship of conservative voices. Some of the people the president-elect has tapped to regulate technology and other industries have vowed to crack down as a result.
In recent weeks, Zuckerberg met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, during which the technology executive congratulated the president-elect on winning the election.
