🥊 Dana White to meet Trump Monday on press secretary job offer

President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday, Nov 7, that UFC chief Dana White "has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States," according to the New York Post. The post ended: "Dana, please take the job!" The report gives no ET time for the post, only the day.

Who says what

CNN, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported that White declined the offer, according to the CNN report carried by Yahoo. That report adds that one aide said Trump was joking. It is a single-source claim and stays CNN's. CNBC notes it was unclear whether White accepted or was simply acknowledging a joke.

White House communications director Steven Cheung reposted the message and wrote "Hell yeah! Do it, @DanaWhite!", according to Fox News' OutKick. Trump also asked White to bring six current and former UFC fighters as assistants, the Post reports. The Guardian notes that Trump's post misspelled Kayla Harrison's surname as "Harris."

The response

White posted a photo of himself in the White House briefing room on Instagram Stories with the caption "On to the next chapter," per the Post. Asked at the London news conference, he said: "Yeah, I got a lot of jobs already," and declined to say what he had discussed with Trump, according to AP. He did not say whether he would accept. The White House and a UFC spokesperson did not respond Saturday to AP's messages.

What happens next

White said he planned to fly to Washington after the news conference for a meeting with Trump on Monday. "I'm sure I'll have more to talk about after that," he said, per Yahoo Sports. No source in the pack says whether a decision is expected at that meeting.

The money question

The Guardian notes that some observers say White might hesitate to leave a role that has earned him an estimated $600m or more for a job paying $195,000 a year. Forbes put his net worth at more than $600 million in 2025 and said he keeps ownership shares in UFC parent TKO Group Holdings. At the 2016 sale of the UFC for $4 billion, White held a 9% stake, per the Los Angeles Times. He kept a minority stake and the president's chair. TKO's own release puts 2025 UFC revenue at $1.502 billion and adjusted EBITDA at $851.0 million. Those are estimates and company figures, not White's paycheck. His actual pay is not in the documents read.

Backstory: the Zuffa record

The UFC's operating company, Zuffa, is still in court. On Feb 6, 2025, Judge Richard Boulware gave final approval to a $375 million settlement of Le v. Zuffa, a 2014 antitrust suit in which former fighters claimed the UFC built monopsony power through exclusive contracts, coercion and acquisitions, according to MMA Fighting. The judge had rejected an earlier $335 million deal in July 2024 as seeming low. The UFC said it believed the original deal was fair and wanted to close the litigation, ESPN reports.

A second suit, Johnson v. Zuffa, covering fighters from 2017 onward, is still running. In February 2026 White testified in Nevada federal court that he no longer negotiates fighter contracts, saying "You won't find one manager on this planet who will tell you I've negotiated a deal in I don't know how long," per Front Office Sports. Hunter Campbell, the UFC's chief business officer, testified: "I run the fight business, and he runs the entire company." The BBC reports that the judge was skeptical of that set-up.

As of Nov 8, 4:35 AM ET, what is confirmed is Trump's Truth Social offer, White's "On to the next chapter" Instagram caption, and White's own statement that he meets Trump on Monday. Pending: whether White declined, as CNN's source says, whether the offer was serious, and any White House or UFC response.