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Dina Powell McCormick, a former senior official in Donald Trump’s first administration, is joining Meta as president and vice-chair focused on its artificial intelligence investments.
Powell McCormick, who spent 16 years in senior roles at Goldman Sachs, is joining the tech giant’s management team after she served on its board of directors last year.
McCormick served as deputy national security adviser to Trump in his first term and also served in George W Bush’s administration.
In the wake of Trump’s election win just over a year ago, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has publicly courted the president, relaxing Meta’s moderation policies to appease Maga fears over censorship and hiring Republican allies to key positions.
Internally, Republican operative Joel Kaplan was promoted to chief global affairs officer. Dana White, Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive and a close friend of Trump’s, was also appointed to Meta’s board, as was Powell McCormick.
The appointment of the banking heavyweight to the new strategic role comes as Zuckerberg pours billions of dollars into his bet on building “personal superintelligence” to compete with AI rivals such as OpenAI and Google.
As part of the push, he has escalated Meta’s spending on costly AI infrastructure and dealmaking.
Meta said Powell McCormick will help manage its data centres and energy investments. She will also “drive an effort to build new strategic capital partnerships and find innovative ways to expand our long-term investment capacity”, it said.
“Dina’s experience at the highest levels of global finance, combined with her deep relationships around the world, makes her uniquely suited to help Meta manage this next phase of growth,” said Zuckerberg.
Last year, the company began undertaking complex financial transactions to pay for the data centres and chips that will power its AI models, tapping corporate bond markets and private creditors.
In a statement on Monday, Meta said that it was “creating the massive physical and financial model that will power the next decade of computing”.
Last week, Meta announced deals with two nuclear energy start-ups, Oklo and TerraPower, to help power its expansion into energy-intensive AI.
Powell McCormick’s appointment at Meta was welcomed by Trump on his own social platform Truth Social. “A great choice by Mark Z!!! She is a fantastic, and very talented, person, who served the Trump Administration with strength and distinction!” he wrote.
