Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Monday that Meta has added Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White and two other executives to its board.
Meta is adding White, a longtime friend of President-elect Donald J. Trump, to the social media company’s leadership amid a series of moves to strengthen its ties with the incoming administration. Last week, the company shook up its top policy team, naming a longtime executive known for his Republican ties to head global policy. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
In recent years, Mr. White and Mr. Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, have combined their passion for professional fighting, including mixed martial arts, which Mr. Zuckerberg took up in 2022.
“Dana is the president and CEO of UFC and has built it into one of the most valuable, fastest growing and most popular sports enterprises in the world,” Zuckerberg said in his post. “I admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”
In 2023, White attempted to broker a cage match between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, Tesla and SpaceX. Musk, who became a close ally of Trump, eventually withdrew from the fight, citing an old injury. He said Mr. Zuckerberg was to blame for not making himself available to fight later.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, created three new board seats for appointments, bringing the total number to 13. Zuckerberg said the company also added John Elkann, chief executive of Exor, a holding company with based in Europe. which controls Jeep and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a technology investor who previously worked at Microsoft and recently advised Meta on artificial intelligence projects.
“We have tremendous opportunities ahead of us in artificial intelligence, wearables and the future of social media, and our board of directors will help us realize our vision,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Meta in recent years has begun producing wearable technology, such as gaming headsets and camera-equipped sunglasses. It is also competing in a global AI race, launching its own generative system with “open source” code so it can be freely copied, modified and reused by anyone.
Meta has faced harsh Republican criticism for content moderation on its social media platforms, which Trump and others say amounts to censorship of conservative voices. Some of the people the president-elect has turned to to regulate the tech sector and other sectors have promised to crack down accordingly.
In recent weeks, Zuckerberg met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, during which the tech executive congratulated the president-elect on winning the election.