Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in a Fb put up Monday that Metta has added Dana White, the CEO of the Final Preventing Championship, and two different executives to its board.
Meta provides Mr. White, a longtime friend of President-elect Donald J. Trumpto the social media firm’s management amid a sequence of strikes to strengthen its ties with the incoming administration. Final week the corporate shook up the top of his political teamappointing a longtime govt identified for his Republican ties to go world coverage. Meta additionally donated $1 million for Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund.
In recent times, Mr. White and Mr. Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief govt, have bonded over their ardour for skilled combating, together with blended martial arts, which Mr. Zuckerberg took up in 2022.
“Dana is the president and CEO of the UFC, and he has constructed it into some of the priceless, fastest-growing and hottest sports activities companies on this planet,” Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned in his put up. “I admired him as an entrepreneur and his capacity to construct such a beloved model.”
In 2023 Mr. White tried to cage match broker 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, ultimately dropped out of the combat, citing an previous harm. He argued that it was Mr Zuckerberg’s fault for not placing himself ahead to combat later.
Meta, which owns Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, created three new board seats for the appointments, bringing the entire to 13. Mr Zuckerberg mentioned the corporate had additionally added John ElkannCEO of Exor, the European-based holding firm that controls Jeep and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a expertise investor who beforehand labored at Microsoft and not too long ago suggested Meta on synthetic intelligence tasks.
“We’ve super alternatives forward in AI, wearables and the way forward for social media, and our board will assist us obtain our imaginative and prescient,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.
In recent times, Meta has begun producing wearable expertise akin to gaming headsets and camera-equipped sun shades. It additionally competes in a world AI race, launched its own generative system with “open source” code. in order that it may be freely copied, modified and reused by anybody.
Meta has confronted sharp Republican criticism for moderating content material on its social media platforms, which Mr. Trump and others say quantities to censorship of conservative voices. A few of the individuals the president-elect has appointed to control the tech and different industries have promised to take action smash in consequence.
In current weeks, Mr. Zuckerberg met with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, throughout which the CTO congratulated the president-elect on successful the election.
