UFC’s Dana White joins Meta’s board weeks before Trump takes office

Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a longtime friend of President-elect Donald Trump, is joining the board of Facebook parent Meta two weeks before the new Trump administration begins.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had a particularly tense relationship with Trump during the president-elect’s first term in office, said in a Facebook post Monday that White has built the UFC “into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world.”

“I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand,” Zuckerberg said in the post.

Zuckerberg has been practicing mixed martial arts in recent years and has attended several UFC events, underscoring his enthusiasm for the combat sport.

In 2023, Zuckerberg tore his ACL during a sparring session as part of training for a competitive MMA fight. That year, Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk traded verbal barbs and indicated that they were willing to fight each other in a match that White would help produce. But Zuckerberg later said the fight was off because Musk wasn’t “serious.”

White appeared with Trump onstage on election night in November after the victory was in hand.

“This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” White said, after being introduced by Trump. “What you’ve seen over the last several years, this is what it looks like. Couldn’t stop him, he keeps going forward, he doesn’t quit, he’s the most resilient hardworking man I’ve ever met in my life.”

Last month, Meta confirmed that the company had donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Zuckerberg was also one of several tech executives who visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, following the election.

Musk has had his own connections to UFC in the recent past. In 2021, Musk joined the board of Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor Group, which owns the UFC through TKO Group Holdings. He exited a year later.

Other new members of Meta’s board include John Elkann, the CEO of Italian holding company Exor, and former Microsoft head of corporate strategy Charlie Songhurst, Zuckerberg said.

Elkann is chairman of Exor’s automobile companies Stellantis and Ferrari, while Songhurst has spent the previous year on Meta’s advisory group helping the company with its artificial intelligence and technology strategies, Zuckerberg added.

“We have massive opportunities ahead in AI, wearables, and the future of social media, and our board will help us achieve our vision,” Zuckerberg said.

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