Meta provides UFC CEO and Trump booster Dana White to its board

UFC CEO Dana White is becoming a member of Meta’s board, the corporate announced today. The addition of the mixed-martial arts impresario jives with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s well-documented UFC fandom, but in addition the bigger technique Meta seems to be utilizing heading right into a second Trump time period: tacking proper.

That is to not say White’s seat on the board is typical, nonetheless. Most of Meta’s present board members work within the tech trade. The 2 members Meta is including alongside White, John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst, match the social media firm’s normal invoice. White would possibly say he is “an enormous believer that social media and AI are the longer term” in Meta’s press launch, however the firm he retains is probably going the extra essential motive he is becoming a member of now.

Dana White and President-elect Donald Trump have been friends for years. White supported Trump’s marketing campaign for re-election, and UFC as an entire suits his strong-man tastes. Placing White on the board is as a lot about burnishing Zuckerberg’s self-image as it’s accessing the incoming Trump Administration. The President-elect would possibly at one point have thought that Zuckerberg ought to “spend the remainder of his life in jail,” however Meta’s CEO is doing every thing in his energy to courtroom him.

Zuckerberg visited Mar-A-Lago in November 2024 to have dinner with Trump, one in all a number of tech CEOs to take action. Meta’s additionally been adjusting its govt ranks to higher work with a conservative authorities. The corporate’s former President of World Affairs Nick Clegg announced he was stepping down simply final week, to get replaced by Meta’s most outstanding Republican govt, Joel Kaplan. Amongst Kaplan’s credit is an eight-year stint within the Bush Administration. Zuckerberg has been in UFC mode for some time now, and it looks like for not less than the following 4 years, Meta will probably be too.