Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President and CEO and a staunch ally of president-elect Donald Trump, has joined the board of directors of Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta (META+3.38%), the company announced Monday.
Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced White’s addition alongside two new members of the company’s board of directors: John Elkan, CEO of Exor, and Charlie Songhurst, a technology investor and former Microsoft (MSFT+0.79%) corporate strategist.
“Dana, John and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables and the future of human connection,” Zuckerberg said.
White said in a press release that he had “never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta’s board.”
“I am a huge believer that social media and AI are the future,” he added. “There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”
White’s addition comes after he played a crucial role in Trump’s presidential campaign. Many reports credited him as one of the key architects behind Trump’s appeal to younger male voters. White was reportedly instrumental in getting the President-elect to appear on so-called “manosphere” podcasts hosted by Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and others. He also appeared in the president-elect’s first TikTok.
The UFC boss is also a friend of Zuckerberg, who has taken up martial arts as a hobby. The two appeared in a picture together last February and ESPN reported that White asked Zuckerberg for help with UFC’s ranking system last year.
Meta is one of the many big tech companies trying to make good with the Trump administration before it takes off in a few weeks. Zuckerberg has often faced threats from Trump, but has since tried to make nice — refusing to endorse a candidate in the most recent election. He also had Meta donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Amazon’s (AMZN+1.28%) Jeff Bezos made similar donations.
In December, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a briefing with journalists that Zuckerberg wants to play “an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere.”
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