Why Mark Zuckerberg turned to Dana White to secure Maga’s favor | Karim Zidan

Iin the four months since donald trump accused mark zuckerberg of conspiring against him during the 2020 presidential election and threatened him with life imprisonmentMeta’s CEO has gone to great lengths to ingratiate himself with the new president.

Shortly after Trump’s victory in November, Zuckerberg traveled to Mar-a-Lago to even have dinner with the president-elect and his transition team Donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. He has too Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was culledremoving restrictions on issues such as immigration and gender. And this week, Zuckerberg took his efforts to join the new administration a step further by appointing Dana White – the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a close Trump ally – to the board of directors. board of Meta.

“I have never been interested in joining a board of directors until I was offered to join Meta’s board of directors. I’m a big believer that social media and AI are the future,” White said in Meta’s official press release. “I am very excited to join this great team and learn more about this company from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”

In the press release, Zuckerberg noted how White, along with other new board members John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst, would help Meta “address the enormous opportunities ahead of us in AI, wearables and the future of human connection.” But given that White – a fight promoter and veteran hype man – has no experience in any of these areas, his appointment appears to be a calculated move by Zuckerberg to strengthen ties with Trump through one of his closest and most influential allies.

White’s friendship with Trump dates back to 2001, when the UFC president was still trying to convince the world that MMA was more than a blood sport. While the UFC struggled to find a home for its events, Trump took a chance and offered his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City for two consecutive events.

White has since credited Trump with helping the UFC during a difficult period in its history. And while the story is just a marketing story, it has helped create a compelling narrative for the growing alliance between the two men and their respective brands.

White has endorsed Trump at three Republican National Conventions and a slew of campaign rallies. He traveled with the president-elect on Air Force One and produced a UFC documentary on Trump titled Combatant-in-Chief. White even spoke during Trump’s victory speech after the 2024 election. “This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” White said at the time. “This is karma, ladies and gentlemen. He deserves this.”

In recent years, Trump has regularly attended UFC events, basking in the admiration of the young, predominantly male audience. He cultivated relationships with fighters and leveraged their support to portray himself as a symbolic strongman. He embraced the UFC’s culture of resistance, machismo and spectacle to help cement his image as a rebel against liberal norms. It has also hastened the replacement of America’s conventional political culture with an abrasive new mix of entertainment and confrontational politics, perfectly embodied by both Trump and White.

While White even helped Trump connect with the podcast hosts and influencers like Joe Rogan, Theo Von and the Nelk Boys, all of whom would play a major role in helping Trump connect with younger audiences, he later relented that he was not interested in entering the political arena himself. “I don’t want anything to do with this nonsense. It’s dirty. It’s disgusting,” White told the New Yorker.

Still, White’s close relationship with Trump has helped transform the cage-fighting impresario into a businessman with more political cachet than most Washington elites. His positioning at the intersection of sports, business and fighting culture also made him a channel for brands looking to score points with a conservative audience. For example, when Bud Light faced major right-wing backlash for featuring trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney in one of their promotional campaigns, the organization signed a deal with the UFC to become the organization’s official beer. White took it upon himself to defend Bud Light, argue that “if you consider yourself a patriot, you should drink gallons of Bud Light.”

Even Zuckerberg was pulled into White’s orbit. The two men bonded over their shared interest in MMA, which the billionaire took up in 2022. That year, Meta announced a partnership with the UFC that brought the UFC’s streaming video service to Meta Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality platform. They also discussed the introduction of artificial intelligence into the UFC’s troubled fighter ranking system.

In 2023, White tried to mediate a fight between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, another tech billionaire and Trump ally. Musk eventually withdrew from the fight, citing a lingering injury, and blamed Zuckerberg for refusing to reschedule the fight.

Despite their blossoming friendship, White’s appointment to the board of directors of Zuckerberg’s organization drew criticism from Meta employees.

Shortly after Meta’s announcement, employees took to Workplace, Meta’s business communications platform, to share their thoughts. Some raised questions and criticisms, including why Meta worked with a man who beat his wife in public and faced no consequences for his actions. Others joked about asking if there were performance reviews would now include MMA fighting.

‘We hire Conor [McGregor] next for sparring after work?”, one employee responded in a message reviewed by technology outlet 404 Media. McGregor was found liable for sexual assault in November 2024 and is currently appealing the decision.

In response to the many criticisms, Meta deleted some internal messagesciting violations of guidelines governing employee communications. For a company that claimed it “time to return to our roots around free speechEarlier that same day, the decision to censor some of the employee criticism was bitterly ironic. It also drew parallels with White’s own approach to dealing with criticism of the UFC.

Like Trump, White is notoriously sensitive and thin-skinned when it comes to the media. In the lead-up to the UFC sellout in 2016, he blacklisted journalist Ariel Helwani for stealing him and pushing a UFC story before White had a chance to reveal it himself. While Helwani’s ban was quickly liftedcountless other journalists, including myself, have faced his wrath and been banned for life from covering the UFC. For example, I was banned for my critical reporting on the organization, including my reporting on its ties to Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov.

White’s strong approach to public relations, including insulting outbursts against media members, is part of the promotion’s strategy to control journalists, and by extension, the stories surrounding a particular event. Due to the constant fear of having their press credentials revoked, the beat reporters present are discouraged from asking difficult questions that would reflect poorly on the UFC. These include topics such as union formationfighter pay, or the UFC’s ties to various authoritarian regimes around the world. This is the kind of experience White brings to Meta.

Zuckerberg’s frantic efforts to appease Trump appear to be paying off. Earlier this week, the president-elect praised Meta for changing the way it moderates political content, even speculating whether the policy change was a direct response to the threats he made to Zuckerberg.

“Honestly, I think they’ve come a long way, Meta, Facebook,” Trump said.