The economies of Gulf countries like the UAE will persevere and continue to thrive despite the conflict between the US and Iran, Dina Powell McCormick, president of the social media giant Meta, said on Monday.
Ms Powell McCormick made her comments during her appearance at Semafor's World Economy Summit in Washington.
She said that she had recently spoken with Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Mubadala chief executive and managing director, and that the two had discussed how the UAE's investments in artificial intelligence and other technologies would support it amid the current conflict.
Meta's president also said she plans to visit Abu Dhabi and Dubai soon, and praised technological developments in the UAE, as well as in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. "About 15 years ago they really started to diversify their economies away from natural resources ... and into technology and biotech," she said.
For the last decade, the UAE has worked to become a global leader in AI. In 2019, the country announced the establishment of a university dedicated to the technology – the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.
Two years earlier, the Emirates was among the first countries in the world to appoint an AI minister, Omar Al Olama, who is now Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications.
Efforts to prioritise AI in the UAE culminated in a major announcement during US President Donald Trump's visit to the country last year, when plans for a five-gigawatt UAE-US AI Campus were announced.
Meta has invested billions of dollars in AI and introduced various large language models. But amid its AI pivot, the company has found itself at the centre of lawsuits related to its social media apps. A recent legal decision found that the company failed to protect children using Facebook and Instagram, while another found that Meta deliberately designed apps to be more addictive.
"We disagree with those verdicts and we're appealing," Ms Powell McCormick said. She added that Meta provides many tools to ensure its platforms remain safe.
Meta announced Ms Powell McCormick, who is Egyptian American, as the company's president in 2026.
Ms Powell McCormick previously served as deputy national security adviser during Mr Trump's first term. She was widely considered a driving force behind the Trump administration's Middle East policy at that time. At one point she was considered a frontrunner to succeed the former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, but reportedly took her name out of the running
She is married to Pennsylvania Republican Senator David McCormick, who defeated the incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey in 2024.
Before serving in the Trump White House, Ms Powell also worked as assistant Secretary of State to the former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, under President George W Bush.
