Meta has appointed 3 new participants to its board of administrators, the corporate introduced Monday: UFC president and CEO Dana White, Eu funding corporate Exor CEO John Elkann, and tech investor and entrepreneur Charlie Songhurst.
In a press unlock, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that White, Elkann, and Songhurst “will upload a intensity of experience and viewpoint” that’ll lend a hand Meta “take on the large alternatives forward with AI, wearables, and the way forward for human connection.”
White used to be named CEO of UFC in 2023, after the group merged with WWE to shape a brand new public corporate, TKO Staff Holdings. He’s liable for the total strategic path of UFC’s world trade, together with its reside occasions collection.
Elkann, who based Exor in 2009, could also be the chief chair of Ferrari and Stellantis (previously Fiat Chrysler). At Exor, Elkann invests in corporations together with the aforementioned Ferrari and Stellantis, Philips, Christian Louboutin, Juventus Soccer Membership, and The Economist Staff. Elkann additionally runs Lingotto, an funding control corporate wholly owned via Exor.
As for Songhurst, he prior to now served as basic supervisor and head of world company technique at Microsoft, occupied with partnerships and M&A. As a part of that function, he led the Yahoo and Skype acquisitions.
Songhurst have been advising Meta’s executives on AI since remaining 12 months as a part of a newly created product advisory council. He’ll depart that council to take a board seat, an organization spokesperson informed Bloomberg.
The additions deliver Meta’s board to 13 administrators, together with Zuckerberg. All however two have joined since 2019. Different participants come with Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, and Broadcom president Hock Tan.
Zuckerberg holds the identify of chairman of the board, and keeps majority keep watch over via Meta’s dual-class inventory construction.
As Bloomberg notes, White is a high-profile campaigner for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (even though he just lately swore he “sought after not anything to do with politics” in a profanity-laden rant). White gave the impression in Trump’s first-ever TikTok video, and spoke on the Republican Nationwide Conference and at Trump’s election-night rally.
White could also be a pal of Zuckerberg’s. The 2 have posed for Instagram pictures in combination, and White sought Zuckerberg’s recommendation on construction AI tech into UFC’s rating methods.
Meta has been the objective of Trump’s complaint traditionally. Zuckerberg has made a number of contemporary strikes to try to appease the incoming president, together with eating at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property and appointing Joe Kaplan, an government with GOP ties, as Meta’s coverage leader.
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