Jan. 6, 2025, 6:35 p.m. ETDana White, left, the manager government of Final Preventing Championship, and Mark Zuckerberg have bonded over their pastime for pro combating. Credit score…Jeff Bottari/Zuffa, by way of Getty ImagesMark Zuckerberg mentioned in a Fb publish Monday that Meta had added Dana White, the manager government of Final Preventing Championship, and two different executives to its board.Meta is including Mr. White, an established good friend of President-elect Donald J. Trump, to the social media corporate’s management amid a sequence of strikes to beef up its ties to the incoming management. Closing week, the corporate shook up the highest of its coverage group, appointing an established government recognized for his Republican ties as head of worldwide coverage. Meta has additionally donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund.Lately, Mr. White and Mr. Zuckerberg, the Meta leader government, have bonded over their pastime for pro 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 treasured, quickest rising, and most well liked sports activities enterprises on the earth,” Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned in his publish. “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his skill to construct this type of cherished logo.”In 2023, Mr. White tried to dealer a cage fit between Mr. Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the billionaire proprietor of X, Tesla and SpaceX. Mr. Musk, who has develop into a detailed best friend of Mr. Trump, in the end sponsored out of the fight, mentioning an previous damage. He claimed Mr. Zuckerberg used to be at fault for now not making himself to be had to battle in a while.Meta, which owns Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, created 3 new board seats for the appointments, bringing the whole quantity to 13. Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned the corporate had additionally added John Elkann, the manager government of Exor, a Ecu-based keeping corporate that controls Jeep and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a tech investor who prior to now labored at Microsoft and has lately prompt Meta on synthetic intelligence tasks.“We now have huge alternatives forward in A.I., wearables, and the way forward for social media, and our board will assist us succeed in our imaginative and prescient,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.Meta lately has begun to fabricate wearable era, like gaming headsets and shades supplied with cameras. It’s also competing in a world A.I. race, launching its personal generative device with “open supply” code in order that it may be freely copied, changed and reused by means of any person.Meta has confronted harsh Republican complaint of its content material moderation on its social media platforms, which Mr. Trump and others argue quantities to censorship of conservative voices. One of the folks the president-elect has tapped to control the tech and different industries have promised to crack down because of this.In fresh weeks, Mr. Zuckerberg met with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, all over which the tech government congratulated the president-elect on successful the election.Display extra
