Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in a Fb publish Monday that Meta had added Dana White, the chief govt of Final Preventing Championship, and two different executives to its board.
Meta is including Mr. White, a longtime friend of President-elect Donald J. Trump, to the social media firm’s management amid a collection of strikes to strengthen its ties to the incoming administration. Final week, the corporate shook up the top of its policy team, appointing a longtime govt identified for his Republican ties as head of world coverage. Meta has additionally donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund.
In recent times, Mr. White and Mr. Zuckerberg, the Meta chief govt, have bonded over their ardour for skilled combating, together with combined martial arts, which Mr. Zuckerberg took up in 2022.
“Dana is the President and CEO of UFC, and he has constructed it into one of the invaluable, quickest rising, and hottest sports activities enterprises on the planet,” Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned in his publish. “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his skill to construct such a beloved model.”
In 2023, Mr. White tried to broker a cage match between Mr. Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the billionaire proprietor of X, Tesla and SpaceX. Mr. Musk, who has change into an in depth ally of Mr. Trump, finally backed out of the battle, citing an previous harm. He claimed Mr. Zuckerberg was at fault for not making himself accessible to struggle afterward.
Meta, which owns Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, created three new board seats for the appointments, bringing the full quantity to 13. Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned the corporate had additionally added John Elkann, the chief govt of Exor, a European-based holding firm that controls Jeep and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a tech investor who beforehand labored at Microsoft and has lately suggested Meta on synthetic intelligence tasks.
“We’ve got large alternatives forward in A.I., wearables, and the way forward for social media, and our board will assist us obtain our imaginative and prescient,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.
Meta in recent times has begun to fabricate wearable expertise, like gaming headsets and sun shades outfitted with cameras. It is usually competing in a worldwide A.I. race, launching its own generative system with “open source” code in order that it may be freely copied, modified and reused by anybody.
Meta has confronted harsh Republican criticism of its content material moderation on its social media platforms, which Mr. Trump and others argue quantities to censorship of conservative voices. A number of the individuals the president-elect has tapped to control the tech and different industries have promised to crack down because of this.
In latest weeks, Mr. Zuckerberg met with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, throughout which the tech govt congratulated the president-elect on successful the election.
