FBI Director Kash Patel flew to Miami on Air Force One last weekend to watch an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, wearing his signature wraparound sunglasses — at least the second time he has gone to a mixed-martial arts fight as the FBI’s leader.

Days earlier, he showed up at two NHL games, grinning in photographs with hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. At one, in Washington, Patel, who has played the sport since he was a child, was spotted in the owner’s suite as he watched Capitals player Alex Ovechkin tie Gretzky’s scoring record.

And since taking over the agency, Patel has been a noticeable presence at President Donald Trump’s side, delivering a warmup speech at the Justice Department before Trump spoke and hovering behind him during the UFC match in Miami.

Patel, 44, seems to relish his new status as director, cutting a highly visible path while running the most important law enforcement agency in the nation. His embrace of the spotlight appears to be a break from the recent past. Previous directors did the job with little fanfare, deflecting any attention that might detract from the work of the bureau.

“As director, I had never sought publicity or the spotlight that sometimes corners public officials,” Louis Freeh wrote in his memoir.

The past three directors have been a mix of personalities, all intent on operating at arm’s length from the president. Robert Mueller was known as serious and succinct. His successor, James Comey, was considered a powerful orator who did not shrink from making headlines. Christopher Wray, who stepped down before Trump took office rather than get fired, fell somewhere in between Mueller, who did not speak enough, and Comey, who spoke too much, former agents said.

They pointed to Comey’s infamous news conference and two letters to Congress during the 2016 campaign that upended the presidential election.

In his three months atop the bureau, Patel has wasted little time emblazing his vision. He has begun to reshape the bureau in short order — in some ways similar to Freeh — such as pushing agents into the field. He also has pushed senior executives to step down.

J. Edgar Hoover, the bureau’s founding director, simply fired them.

Patel has rejiggered the agency’s reporting structure, undoing changes that Mueller made, and brought in a deputy who has never been an agent, a first for the agency.

The changes have not resonated with Patel’s fierce following, prompting his deputy, Dan Bongino, to post on social media: “Because you don’t see things happening in live time, does not mean they aren’t happening. Not even close. You will see results, and not every result will please everyone, but you will absolutely see results.”

Days later, Patel, heeding congressional requests, released some records about the FBI’s investigation into whether any Trump advisers had conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election — an inquiry that Patel denounced.

The FBI quietly suspended with pay a longtime analyst Patel had singled out in his book as a member of the so-called deep state and another veteran agent who had been the target of Republicans in Congress angry over how the FBI dealt with Hunter Biden’s laptop. He has promoted others, including one senior agent whose ascent prompted infighting among Patel’s loyalists.

Even as some of Patel’s work has flown under the radar, he has not shied away from praising his own success, posting on social media glowing news coverage of his early moves.

A smattering of posts highlighted a surge in recruitment applications after he took over in February, but they did not acknowledge that applications had been paused for weeks shortly after Trump’s inauguration.

In March, the FBI published a recruitment video featuring the bureau’s elite Hostage Rescue Team training in Quantico, Virginia. Punctuated to rock music, Patel, dressed in hunting camouflage, watched as helicopters ferried faceless agents who rappelled onto a building and burst into the unit’s shooting house.

Hoover, relentless about self-promotion, may have welcomed such efforts, but the display rankled some former and current agents as performative. Kyle Seraphin, a former agent who has been critical of the agency and has supported Patel, took to social media to poke fun at the director for “taking selfies with the Hostage Rescue Team.”

Patel and Bongino, once known for their tough talk toward the bureau, have since emerged as some of its most avid supporters, leading Seraphin to suggest that they might have been “captured” by the FBI. During a recent visit to Quantico, Bongino got a taste of FBI toughness when he hit the mats with an instructor skilled in jujitsu. Bongino did not fare well, several former agents said.

Bongino posted about the incident: “The instructor I was grappling with got the best of me because he’s incredibly talented.”

Patel’s active presence on social media, including his personal and work profiles, reflect his approach. His accounts on Elon Musk’s platform X intersperse flattering stories about the FBI under his guidance and photos of his public appearances with regular updates on priorities, such as drug seizures and extraditions of gang leaders.

Yet they also serve as a cudgel, upbraiding such publications as The New York Times for reporting on personnel moves at the agency.

Patel, the ninth director of the FBI, is also the youngest since Hoover was appointed in 1924. A bachelor who lives in Las Vegas, Patel belongs to the Poodle Room, a members-only club at the Fontainebleau resort near his home.

Hoover also was fond of clubs catering to a wealthy clientele, such as the Stork Club in New York City, which he occasionally frequented.

Hoover never married. Patel is enjoying bachelorhood, dating Alexis Wilkins, 26, a country singer who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. According to flight-tracking data, one of the bureau’s Gulfstream jets has made three round trips to Nashville. On at least one of those stops, Patel conducted official business, visiting the local field office and meeting with Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, both R-Tenn., along with sheriffs from around the state.

There is little information about the other trips, including who covered the cost.

Directors must reimburse the government for use of the plane at the price of a commercial ticket — much less than it actually costs to operate the expensive jets.