Mark Zuckerberg posing with UFC president Dana White throughout a UFC Battle Evening occasion.
Jeff Bottari | Ufc | Getty Photographs
Dana White, CEO of the Final Preventing Championship and a longtime good friend of President-elect Donald Trump, is becoming a member of the board of Fb guardian Meta two weeks earlier than the brand new Trump 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 Fb put up Monday that White has constructed the UFC “into some of the beneficial, quickest rising, and hottest sports activities enterprises on this planet.”
“I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his capability to construct such a beloved model,” Zuckerberg mentioned within the put up.
Zuckerberg has been practicing mixed martial arts lately 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 combat one another in a match that White would assist produce. However Zuckerberg later said the combat was off as a result of Musk wasn’t “severe.”
White appeared with Trump onstage on election evening in November after the victory was in hand.
“That is what occurs when the machine comes after you,” White mentioned, after being launched by Trump. “What you’ve got seen during the last a number of years, that is what it seems like. Could not cease him, he retains going ahead, he does not stop, he is probably the most resilient hardworking man I’ve ever met in my life.”
Final month, Meta confirmed that the corporate had donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Zuckerberg was additionally certainly one of a number of tech executives who visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Seaside, Florida, following the election.
White, who has led UFC since 2001, grew to become embroiled in controversy two years ago after a video printed by TMZ confirmed him slapping his spouse at a New 12 months’s Eve celebration in Mexico. White issued a public apology, and his spouse, Anne White, issued an announcement to TMZ, calling it an remoted incident.
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 way of TKO Group Holdings. He exited a yr later.
Different new members of Meta’s board embody John Elkann, the CEO of 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 expertise methods, Zuckerberg added.
“We’ve 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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