Dana White can add another distinction to his résumé but this one doesn’t have anything directly to do with combat sports.
A press release Monday announced the UFC president and CEO plus two others, Exor CEO John Elkann and tech investor Charlie Songhurst, were elected to the Meta board of directors.
“Dana, John, and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI (artificial intelligence), wearables and the future of human connection,” Meta and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in the release.
White and Zuckerberg know each other after Zuckerberg became a fan of mixed martial arts in recent years and has attended multiple UFC in the past, even accompanying Alexander Volkanovski to the cage ahead of Volkanovski’s UFC 298 main event title fight 11 months ago.
“I’ve never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta’s board,” White said. “I am a huge believer that social media and AI are the future. I am very excited to join this incredible team and to learn more about this business from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”
“I’m totally going to fix the rankings,” White said at the time. “We’re going to make a lot of strong moves here coming into 2025.”
It is unclear how, if at all, this new role on the Meta board of directors will impact White’s role or day-to-day responsibilities with the UFC.
The UFC kicks off its 2025 schedule on Saturday with a Fight Night event at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas where the MMA organization has its headquarters.
With files from Associated Press
