As Donald Trump Prepares To Take Office, Meta Names New Public Policy Chief As Nick Clegg Departs

Ted Johnson
·2-min read

Nick Clegg, who has led global affairs at Meta since 2018, is stepping down, to be succeeded by his deputy, Joel Kaplan.

The changes in Meta’s public policy and lobbying team come as corporations in general are prepping their shops for the incoming Donald Trump administration and Republican majority.

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Kaplan, VP of global public policy, was deputy chief of staff for policy under President George W. Bush, and previously served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. He joined Facebook in 2011. In 2020, The Washington Post reported that Kaplan argued against some content moderation measures, arguing that they would disproportionately harm conservative voices.

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Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the UK and leader of the Liberal Democrats, wrote on Facebook, “As a new year begins, I have come to the view that this is the right time for me to move on from my role as President, Global Affairs at Meta.

“I am now in my seventh year working at this remarkable company. When I arrived in the Fall of 2018 the company – then Facebook – was very different to what it is today: it had rapidly established itself as one of the greatest global communication platforms ever invented – empowering billions of people to connect with each other and express themselves like never before – led by one of the most consequential innovators and business leaders of our times, Mark Zuckerberg.”

Kevin Martin, FCC chairman under Bush, will move into Kaplan’s role as VP of global policy.

In his message, Clegg wrote that his “time at the company coincided with a significant resetting of the relationship between ‘big tech’ and the societal pressures manifested in new laws, institutions and norms affecting the sector. I hope I have played some role in seeking to bridge the very different worlds of tech and politics – worlds that will continue to interact in unpredictable ways across the globe.”

Semafor first reported on Clegg’s exit.

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Last year, in a book released during the presidential campaign, Trump accused Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg of plotting against him during the 2020 campaign and threatened to have him “spend the rest of his life in prison.” Since Trump’s election this year, Zuckerberg has dined with the president-elect at Mar-A-Lago, and Meta has reportedly donated $1 million to the upcoming inauguration.

In 2023, Meta reinstated Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, which were suspended after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Heightened suspension penalties also were removed from the accounts last summer.

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