UFC boss Dana White and two others to join Meta Board

Meta announced the appointment of three new board members including the general manager of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and close ally of Donald Trump, Dana White.

It turns out that the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, seems to be making efforts to strengthen ties with Trump, before the inauguration of the president-elect of the United States this month.

A few days ago, the former British Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Nick Clegg has left his job as chairman of global affairs at the social media giant.

Other new members of Meta’s board include John Elkann, who heads European investment firm Exor, and Charlie Songhurst, a former Microsoft executive.

“Dana, John and Charlie bring a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us address the massive opportunities ahead with (artificial intelligence), wearables and the future of human connection,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.

The social media giant also praised Mr White’s role in turning UFC into a global business.

In a post on Meta’s Instagram, Mr White said he loves social media and is “excited to be a small part of the future of (artificial intelligence) and emerging technologies”.

Mr White has previously rejected any suggestion that UFC platforms hate speech, insisting he supports free speech.

A year ago, his tense exchange with a reporter who questioned why he allowed fighters to make anti-LGBT remarks went viral.

“People can say what they want and they can believe what they want,” replied Mr. White.

The UFC leader had a close relationship with Trump for decades.

Mr White’s appointment follows news that Sir Nick had been replaced at Meta by his deputy, prominent Republican Joel Kaplan, who handled relations between the social media firm and the Republican Party.

There has been an apparent thaw between Meta and Trump in recent months.

Relations were frozen at least since Trump was banned from Facebook and Instagram after the revolution of the US Capitol in January 2021.

In August, Trump wrote in a book that Mr Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere in the 2024 US election.

But the president-elect later softened his stance, telling a podcast in October that it was “nice” that Mr Zuckerberg was “staying out of the election”, and thanking him for a personal phone call after he faced an assassination attempt .

Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago and had dinner with Trump after his election victory in November. At the beginning of the month, he donated $1 million (£800,000) to the President-elect’s inauguration fund.