Meta Adds Trump Advisors to Its Board. Is That How Decisions Get Made?

On April 11, 2025, Meta announced it was adding two people to its Board of Directors. Dina Powell McCormick, who served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump, and Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, would join effective April 15. The board would expand to 15 members.

Read the timing carefully. An antitrust trial against Meta was set to begin the following Monday.

Neither of these appointments is about running the company. Powell McCormick has no operating experience at a tech company. Collison runs Stripe, which has nothing to do with social media. Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said they brought expertise in "economic development and entrepreneurs," which is generic enough to apply to almost anyone.

The real story is simpler. A company facing major legal and regulatory pressure added a former Trump official to its board right before a trial.

So who decides at Meta? Zuckerberg still does, functionally speaking. He controls the voting shares and the board answers to him. But the addition of Powell McCormick sends a signal about what conversations will happen in that boardroom, and in what direction those conversations will lean.

What I would look for: whether Powell McCormick becomes active on board committees or stays silent through her tenure. Whether Meta's lobbying strategy shifts after her arrival. Whether, when regulatory or political decisions loom, her voice gets noticed in the noise.

A board seat is not a veto. It is a seat at the table where someone can make sure a certain perspective gets heard before a vote happens. It shapes which questions get asked and which do not.

The bigger lesson is that a company's decisions are not made in the moment of voting. They are made in the weeks before, when someone picks who sits in the room.