Penang-born Businessman Joins Meta’s Board of Directors

Penang-born Tan Hock Eng has now similarly made Malaysia proud by being elected to Meta’s board of directors. The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp.

Meta announced that Tan had joined the board, effective immediately along with philanthropist John Arnold.

“I am pleased to join the Meta Board and contribute to achieving the company’s vision,” said Tan.

“Meta has an incredible role to play in the next-generation of computing as it evolves its platform and apps offerings for the future. I look forward to working with Mark, the broader team and the other Board members on Meta’s technology and business journey.”

Tan has served as Broadcom’s President & CEO and a member of the Board of Directors since March 2006. According to CNBC, Tan has led the semiconductor giant since 2006, bringing with him extensive international experience working in computing infrastructure technology.

In 2017, Tan was impressively named the highest-earning CEO in the U.S., earning US$103.2 million (approximately RM493.35 million) that year.

This aligns with Meta’s direction of investing heavily in developing advanced infrastructure to fuel its growth in artificial intelligence (and artificial general intelligence, or AGI) and its buildout of the metaverse.

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Meta, said, “I’m excited to share that Hock Tan and John Arnold are joining Meta’s board of directors.

As we focus on building AGI, having directors with deep expertise in silicon and energy infrastructure will help us execute our long term vision.”

According to The Edge, Tan was born and raised in Penang. He has a bachelor's degree and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the top private universities in the U.S.

Tan then earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard University before returning to Malaysia, where he served as managing director for Hume Industries between 1983 and 1988.

In 1992, he relocated back to the US as vice-president of finance for PC maker Commodore International.

He then worked as a senior finance executive at PepsiCo as well as a senior executive at General Motors. Tan has also acquired U.S. citizenship.

Married to K. Lisa Yang, a Singaporean, Tan has two children who have been diagnosed with autism.

He is also known as a philanthropist and has contributed generously to various causes such as $20 million (approximately RM95.6 million) to MIT in 2017.

This money went towards funding research to find effective treatments for autism and find its causes which created the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research.