Meta named former Trump adviser Dina Powell McCormick to serve as president and vice chair Monday, further cementing the company’s growing ties to Republicans and President Donald Trump’s White House.
In addition to a long career on Wall Street, Powell McCormick served as Trump’s deputy national security adviser during his first term. She was also a member of the George W. Bush administration.
She first joined Meta’s board last April, part of a broader play by the social media and artificial intelligence giant to hire Republicans following Trump’s election.
In a statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised Powell McCormick’s “experience at the highest levels of global finance, combined with her deep relationships around the world, [which] makes her uniquely suited to help Meta manage this next phase of growth.”
Rightward trend: Powell McCormick’s time in global finance — she spent 16 years as a partner at Goldman Sachs and was most recently a top executive at banking company BDT & MSD Partners — could be a major asset to Meta as it raises hundreds of billions of dollars to build out data centers and other AI-related infrastructure.
But her GOP pedigree and proximity to Trump likely played a significant role in her hiring as well.
Since Trump’s election, Meta has worked to curry favor with Republicans in the White House and on Capitol Hill. The company elevated former GOP official Joel Kaplan to serve as global affairs lead last January, simultaneously tapping Kevin Martin, a former Republican chair of the Federal Communications Commission, as his No. 2.
Under pressure from Republicans, last year Meta also rolled back many of its former rules related to content moderation. In 2024, the company apologized to congressional Republicans — specifically Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee — for removing content that contained disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment when asked whether Powell McCormick’s ties to Trump and Republicans played a role in her hiring.
Trump thumbs up: In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump congratulated Powell McCormick and said Zuckerberg made a “great choice.” The president called her “a fantastic, and very talented, person, who served the Trump Administration with strength and distinction!”
