A video of UFC CEO Dana White hitting his wife is recirculating online after Meta announced yesterday that the high-profile ally of President-elect Donald Trump was joining the tech giant’s board.
The short clip, first obtained by TMZ, shows White and his wife Anne exchanging slaps in the VIP area of a Cabo nightclub on New Year’s Eve in 2022, before the mixed martial arts (MMA) mogul forcibly grabs and restrains her.
Following White’s unexpected appointment to Meta’s board, onlookers, including company employees, reposted clips of the apparent assault, accusing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of overlooking his MMA buddy’s indiscretions to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration.
Zuckerberg and White appeared together at UFC events in recent months after the tech titan took an interest in MMA training.
“Tell us again how violence against women ruins men’s careers,” an anti-domestic abuse advocate wrote on X. “Dana White slapped his wife on video, faced zero consequences, and now joins Meta’s board of directors.”
“Dana White was appointed to the Meta board. Here is Dana White beating his wife,” another X user posted, alongside a clip of the slap.
Dissent also came from within the Meta ranks. As 404 Media first reported, some Meta employees expressed reservations about White’s new role soon after the announcement only to see their comments deleted from the company’s internal communications platform.
“I can kind of excuse individuals for being unaware,” one employee reportedly wrote of White’s past. “But Meta surely did their due diligence on White and concluded that what he did is fine. I feel like I’m on another planet.”
The response across Facebook itself was no different.
“Meta adding MAGA lunatic and wife beater Dana White to its board is the last straw,” one user wrote. “I am deleting all Meta accounts and moving full time to BlueSky.”
White apologized for hitting his wife in an interview with TMZ shortly after the incident.
But the longtime UFC president appeared to face no material consequences. White remained at the helm of the massive global fighting enterprise despite the backlash.
And following Meta’s announcement, the internet quickly filled with speculation that White’s political connections, rather than his business savvy, were the real reason Zuckerberg recruited him.
White is a long-time friend of Trump, who actively courted the UFC vote this election. He joined combat sports icons Hulk Hogan and Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon in support of the former president at last summer’s Republican National Convention and made numerous public appearances alongside the president-elect.
“By god Meta is really going to get rid of their antitrust problem by putting Dana White on their board,” one user wrote on X, referring to the Federal Trade Commission’s ongoing lawsuit seeking to break up the company.
Another post depicted White as the Muppet character Big Bird sitting at a board meeting, adding, “Dana when they ask him for his take on Leopold’s paper on superintelligence.”
As a sports mogul and first-time corporate director, White isn’t the typical member of Meta’s board, which is composed of seasoned tech executives like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, and DoorDash co-founder Tony Xu.
In a statement celebrating his new board seat, White admitted corporate governance hasn’t exactly been top of mind: “I’ve never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta’s board.”
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