Mark Zuckerberg posing with UFC president Dana White throughout a UFC Fight Night occasion.
Jeff Bottari | Ufc | Getty Images
Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a longtime pal of Donald Trump, is becoming a member of the board of Facebook mother or father Meta two weeks earlier than the brand new administration begins.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had a very tense relationship with Trump in the course of the president-elect’s first time period in workplace, mentioned in a Facebook publish Monday that White has constructed the UFC “into one of the precious, quickest rising, and hottest sports activities enterprises on this planet.”
“I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his potential to construct such a beloved model,” Zuckerberg mentioned within the publish.
Zuckerberg has been practicing mixed martial arts in recent times and has attended a number of UFC occasions, underscoring his enthusiasm for the fight sport.
In 2023, Zuckerberg tore his ACL throughout a sparring session as a part of coaching for a competitive MMA fight. That yr, Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk traded verbal barbs and indicated that they have been prepared to battle one another in a match that White would assist produce. But Zuckerberg later said the battle was off as a result of Musk wasn’t “critical.”
White appeared with Trump onstage on election evening in November after the victory was in hand.
“This is what occurs when the machine comes after you,” White mentioned, after being launched by Trump. “What you’ve got seen over the past a number of years, that is what it appears like. Couldn’t cease him, he retains going ahead, he would not give up, he is essentially the most resilient hardworking man I’ve ever met in my life.”
Last month, Meta confirmed that the corporate had donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Zuckerberg was additionally one in all a number of tech executives who visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida following the election.
Musk has had his personal connections to UFC within the current previous. In 2021, Musk joined the board of Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor Group, which owns the UFC by means of TKO Group Holdings. He exited a yr later.
Other new members of Meta’s board embody John Elkann, the CEO of the Italian holding firm Exor, and former Microsoft head of company technique Charlie Songhurst, Zuckerberg mentioned.
Elkann is chairman of Exor’s vehicle firms Stellantis and Ferrari, whereas Songhurst has spent the earlier yr on Meta’s advisory group serving to the corporate with its synthetic intelligence and know-how methods, Zuckerberg added.
“We have large alternatives forward in AI, wearables, and the way forward for social media, and our board will assist us obtain our imaginative and prescient,” Zuckerberg mentioned.
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