UFC CEO Dana White joins Meta’s board of directors : NPR

Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship president and supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, is joining the board of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta.

White’s election as a Meta director two weeks before Trump takes office comes as Silicon Valley is courting the incoming administration, following what has been a frosty relationship with Trump and his allies, who have long accused tech platforms including Meta of anti-conservative bias.

Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Zuckerberg is among the tech titans who have dined with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago since the election. Last week Meta named Joel Kaplan, a veteran company executive and Republican who once worked in George W. Bush’s White House, its head of global policy.

White is a longtime friend of Trump who spoke at the Republican National Convention this summer and appeared in Trump’s first TikTok video. On election night, White joined Trump on stage at his victory party, thanking many of the podcasters and online influencers who, along with UFC, have been credited with boosting the president-elect’s appeal among young men.

White and Zuckerberg, who has trained as a mixed martial arts fighter, have also become friendly. Zuckerberg praised White for building UFC into “one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world” in a Facebook post on Monday. “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand,” Zuckerberg continued.

“I’ve 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,” White said in a statement. White has talked with Zuckerberg about using artificial intelligence to improve UFC rankings, ESPN reported in October.

Meta also named as directors John Elkann, CEO of the European investment firm Ekon and executive chairman of carmakers Stellantis and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a tech investor who previously led corporate strategy at Microsoft. Songhurst joined a group advising Meta on AI last year.

The additions expand Meta’s board from 10 to 13 directors, including Zuckerberg, who serves as chair.

“We have massive opportunities ahead in AI, wearables, and the future of social media, and our board will help us achieve our vision,” Zuckerberg wrote in his Facebook post announcing the new members.