Doordash co-founder and CEO Tony Xu has joined the board of directors of Meta, the parent company of Facebook announced on Tuesday. Xu has served as CEO of Doordash since 2013 and was named chairman of the company’s board in November 2020. Meta says Xu’s appointment is effective immediately. Xu’s appointment brings the total number of people on Meta’s board of directors to 10.
“Millions of local merchants use Meta’s tools to grow and run their businesses every month. I look forward to working with the board as the company enters the next stage of its journey,” Xu said in a press release about the announcement.
Today’s announcement comes as Meta has been focusing heavily on commerce in recent years as the company has introduced a number of shopping features into its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The company has focused on implementing shopping and e-commerce features directly into its services to prevent users from leaving its apps.
In a statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that Xu has experience solving complex challenges in commerce and that the company will leverage Xu’s expertise in creating Metaverse. Trade will play an important role in the metaverse, which indicates that Xu is likely to advise the council on these matters.
“Tony has built a great service for millions of people to get food and many more from hundreds of thousands of restaurants and small businesses,” Zuckerberg said in the statement. “I’ve always thought it important to have great technology leaders on our board, and Tony has direct experience both in running a technology company and solving complex challenges in commerce. I look forward to learning from his perspective as we build towards the metaverse.”
Meta’s board of directors includes Zuckerberg; Peggy Alford, Executive Vice President of Global Sales, PayPal; Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz; Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox; Nancy Killefer, retired senior partner at McKinsey & Company; Robert Kimmitt, Principal Independent Director at Meta and Senior International Consultant at WilmerHale LLP; Sheryl K. Sandberg, Meta’s COO; Peter Thiel, Managing Partner, Founders Fund, and Tracey T. Travis, Executive Vice President and CFO, The Estée Lauder Companies.