Dana White, the president and CEO of UFC and longtime friend of President-elect Donald Trump, is among the new people appointed to Meta’s board of directors, the company announced Monday.
“I’ve never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta’s board. I am a huge believer that social media and AI are the future,” White said in a statement.
The UFC CEO, who’s been involved with the mixed martial arts promotion company since 2001, has endorsed Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns and introduced him at last year’s Republican National Convention, calling him “the toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my life.” White has also been credited with aiding Trump’s appeal to young male voters ― one of the key demographics that helped him best Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Despite the role he played, White has dismissed the possibility of having a role in Trump’s administration and expressed some frustration with politics in the weeks after the election.
“I’m never fucking doing this again,” White told The New Yorker. “I want nothing to do with this shit. It’s gross.”
“It’s disgusting,” he continued. “I want nothing to do with politics.”
White is also friendly with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The two have posed for Instagram photos together, and White has consulted the tech titan on implementing more AI into UFC.
White’s appointment is the latest example of Zuckerberg cozying up to Trump and his allies, underscoring the broader tech industry’s efforts to play nice with the incoming administration. In late November, Zuckerberg met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago. It’s unclear what they discussed, but Zuckerberg reportedly initiated the meeting, according to The New York Times.
Meta is also among the companies that donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The company did not donate to Trump’s first inauguration or to President Joe Biden’s in 2021.
News of White’s appointment comes a few days after Zuckerberg named Republican Joel Kaplan, a former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, as Meta’s head of policy.
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Others named to Meta’s board on Monday include John Elkann, CEO of investment firm Exor, and tech investor Charlie Songhurst.