Dana White, U.F.C. Head, Joins Meta’s Board

Lately, Mr. White and Mr. Zuckerberg, the Meta chief government, have bonded over their ardour for skilled combating, together with blended 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 useful, quickest rising, and hottest sports activities enterprises on the planet,” Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned in his submit. “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his means to construct such a beloved model.”

In 2023, Mr. White tried to dealer a cage match between Mr. Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the billionaire proprietor of X, Tesla and SpaceX. Mr. Musk, who has change into an in depth ally of Mr. Trump, ultimately backed out of the battle, citing an previous harm. He claimed Mr. Zuckerberg was at fault for not making himself accessible to struggle in a while.

Meta, which owns Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, created three new board seats for the appointments, bringing the full quantity to 13. Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned the corporate had additionally added John Elkann, the chief government of Exor, a European-based holding firm that controls Jeep and Ferrari, and Charlie Songhurst, a tech investor who beforehand labored at Microsoft and has lately suggested Meta on synthetic intelligence initiatives.

“We now have huge alternatives forward in A.I., wearables, and the way forward for social media, and our board will assist us obtain our imaginative and prescient,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.

Meta in recent times has begun to fabricate wearable know-how, like gaming headsets and sun shades geared up with cameras. Additionally it is competing in a world A.I. race, launching its personal generative system with “open supply” code in order that it may be freely copied, modified and reused by anybody.

Meta has confronted harsh Republican criticism of its content material moderation on its social media platforms, which Mr. Trump and others argue quantities to censorship of conservative voices. A few of the folks the president-elect has tapped to manage the tech and different industries have promised to crack down because of this.

In current weeks, Mr. Zuckerberg met with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, throughout which the tech government congratulated the president-elect on profitable the election.