Meta has announced the appointment of three new board members, including Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO and close Donald Trump ally, Dana White.
This comes at a time when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to be making efforts to repair relations with Trump, ahead of the inauguration of the US president-elect this month.
A few days ago, former British Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Sir Nick Clegg has left his job as head of global affairs at the social media giant.
Other new members to Meta's board include John Elkann, who leads European investment firm Exor, and Charlie Songhurst, a former Microsoft executive.
“Dana, John, and Charlie will add a depth of experience and perspective that will help us address the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead with (artificial intelligence), wearables, and the future of human communication,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.
The social media giant also praised the role White played in turning the UFC into a global company.
In a post on Meta's Instagram, White said he loves social media and is “excited to be a small part of the future of (artificial intelligence) and emerging technologies.”
White has previously rejected any suggestion that UFC platforms hate speech, insisting that he supports freedom of expression.
A year ago, a tense exchange between him and a reporter who questioned why he allowed fighters to make anti-LGBT statements went viral.
“People can say what they want, and they can believe what they want,” White responded.
The UFC president had Close relationship With Trump for decades.
White's appointment follows news that Sir Nick in Meta will be replaced by his deputy, prominent Republican Joel Kaplan, who handled relations between the social media company and the Republican Party.
There has been a clear thaw between Meta and Trump in recent months.
Relations have been frosty at least since Trump was banned from using Facebook and Instagram in the wake of the January 2021 US Capitol riots.
In August, Trump wrote in a book that Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere in the 2024 US elections.
But the president-elect later softened his stance, saying in an October podcast that it was “good” for Zuckerberg to stay “out of the election,” and thanked him for a personal phone call after he faced an assassination attempt.
Mr. Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago And have dinner with Trump After his electoral victory in November. Earlier this month, he said Donated one million dollars (800 thousand pounds sterling) for the President-elect’s inauguration fund.
