Meta Adds Three Board Members Including UFC Boss Dana White, Key Figure in Trump's Orbit
Meta has appointed three new members to its board of directors, including Dana White, the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a key figure in the orbit of incoming President Donald Trump.
The social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is also adding auto tycoon John Elkann and tech investor Charlie Songhurst, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post late Monday.
White's ties with Trump date back to 2001, when White hosted a UFC at the Republican's former casino-hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Trump Taj Mahal. Trump has also appeared with White at UFC matches over the years, especially in his 2024 campaign as part of efforts to appeal to younger male voters.
White, in turn, has had speaking roles at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Republican conventions and appeared on stage at Trump's election victory party in November, even speaking briefly to the crowd.
White has built UFC 'into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world,' Zuckerberg said. 'I've admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.'
Zuckerberg is also active in mixed martial arts. Zuckerberg and fellow billionaire Elon Musk seemingly agreed to fight in a 'cage match' in 2023, but it never happened.
Elkann, another person joining Meta's board, is the CEO of Exor, a Netherlands-based investment company, and chairman of its two auto companies, Stellantis and Ferrari.
Zuckerberg said Elkann has "deep experience running large global businesses and he brings an international perspective to our board."
Songhurst previously worked at Microsoft and joined began advising Meta last year on artificial intelligence.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Meta Reportedly Poaches Three OpenAI Researchers
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hired three OpenAI researchers to join his "superintelligence" team, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, days after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused the Facebook owner of trying to poach its employees. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the departure of the three employees from the company, without giving further details. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. Meta hired Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai, who were all working at the ChatGPT-owner's Zurich office, the WSJ reported, citing sources. Last week, Altman said Meta had offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them. Once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, Meta has suffered from staff departures and postponed launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competing models from Google, OpenAI, and China's DeepSeek. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman had said. Meta recently hired 28-year-old Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to work on its "superintelligence" efforts. The company also took a 49% stake for $14.3 billion in Scale AI. Meta is now trying to paint a turnaround as reports suggest Zuckerberg is setting up a team of experts to achieve so-called "artificial general intelligence" (AGI).
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Meta Signs Deals to Source More Solar, Wind Power for Data Centers
Renewable energy developer Invenergy and social media giant Meta Platforms have signed four deals to supply 791 megawatts (MW) more of solar and wind power to operate data centers, the companies said on Thursday. This is the latest in a string of deals by Meta to meet the surging power demand of its data centers needed for artificial intelligence technologies using clean energy, Reuters reported. Last year, Meta had signed four contracts with the Chicago-based Invenergy for 760 MW of solar electricity. Invenergy said Thursday's deals bring the companies' total partnership to 1,800 MW. Meta has previously announced deals with several large solar projects, a geothermal startup, and is also seeking proposals from nuclear power developers. The electricity from Invenergy's solar and wind projects in Ohio, Arkansas and Texas will be delivered to the local grid, while Meta will receive the clean energy credits associated with the new generation capacity coming online, the energy company said. The companies did not disclose the financial details of the deals.
Al Arabiya
6 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
White House video embraces Trump as ‘daddy' after NATO chief's remark
The White House embraced the moniker of 'daddy' for Donald Trump in a video that it released after NATO chief Mark Rutte used the term in a conversation with the US president. 'Daddy's home,' the White House posted on X, along with the video featuring the song 'Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home)' by Usher and images of Trump at the NATO summit in The Hague. Rutte, the Dutch secretary general of the military alliance, used the word 'daddy' in an appearance with Trump at Wednesday's summit after the US president berated Israel and Iran over violations of a ceasefire, which later appeared to be holding. In response, Rutte laughed and said: 'And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get (them to) stop.' On Tuesday, Trump said Iran and Israel had been fighting 'so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.' In an interview with Reuters after the summit, Rutte said he had used the word 'daddy' to describe how some allies seem to view the United States, rather than about Trump specifically. 'In Europe, I hear sometimes countries saying, 'Hey, Mark, will the US stay with us?' And I said that sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy, 'Hey, are you still staying with the family?'' Rutte said. 'So in that sense, I used daddy, (it's) not that I was calling President Trump daddy.' Asked if this meant other NATO members were like children who were now growing up after a pledge to spend more on defense, Rutte said they 'already have grown up' but realized they had to step up and 'equalize' defense spending with the United States.
