Who is the former Trump advisor appointed president of Meta
Dina Powell McCormick, a former senior official in the tycoon's first administration, joins Zuckerberg's company. And the tycoon congratulates
A surprise appointment, and of rather significant symbolic value, to the Meta board: Dina Powell McCormick, a former senior official of the first Trump administration and former Goldman Sachs executive, as the new chairman of the board. The choice, according to several analysts, represents the latest step in a broader reorganisation that, over the past year, has progressively realigned Mark Zuckerberg's group with Donald Trump, at a crucial stage for his ambitions on artificial intelligence.
A change of approach that has become evident since Trump returned to the White House, especially remembering that Meta always banned the current US President after the events on Capitol Hill in January 2021.
Powell McCormick brings with her a hybrid profile between finance and politics. She spent 16 years in senior roles at Goldman Sachs and was in the White House (where she had also held positions under President George W. Bush), as deputy national security adviser, during Trump's first term. Since 2019 she has been married to Dave McCormick, an influential Republican politician who is now a senator.
A track record that Meta sees as strategic for tackling what it calls the 'next phase of growth', so much so that the new figure will in fact be the most influential figure after Mark Zuckerberg.
According to the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsAPP, Powell McCormick will play a key role in setting the strategic direction of the group and coordinating the execution of its priorities. His responsibilities will also include creating new capital partnerships and expanding long-term investment capacity. Zuckerberg emphasised that her experience at the highest levels of global finance and her network of international relationships make her "uniquely suited" to lead Meta at this stage.
