(Bloomberg) -- Meta Platforms Inc. said Nick Clegg will step down as president of global affairs and named his deputy, Joel Kaplan, as policy chief, elevating a longtime executive with staunch Republican ties ahead of Trump’s second inauguration as US president.
“I am proud of the work I have been able to do leading and supporting teams across the company to ensure continued innovation can go hand in hand with increased transparency and accountability, and with new forms of governance,” Clegg wrote in a post shared Thursday on Facebook, the company’s flagship social network. “My 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.”
Before joining Meta — then called Facebook Inc. — in 2018 to lead its lobbying efforts, Clegg was the UK’s deputy prime minister and a leader of the Liberal Democrats. For the social media company, the years since have brought escalating regulatory scrutiny, multiple antitrust lawsuits and persistent criticism over Facebook and Instagram’s impact on society, particularly children and teens. Clegg’s role was expanded to include bolstering the company’s communications and broader policy efforts.
Kaplan, who joined Meta to oversee US public policy in 2011, formerly worked on the campaign and in the administration of President George W. Bush. Kevin Martin, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and most recently Meta’s vice president for US public policy, will take over Kaplan’s role as global VP. Their promotions reflect symbolic and strategic moves to install well-connected Republicans to lead Meta’s policy efforts as President-elect Donald Trump gears up to retake the Oval Office this month.
The Menlo Park, California-based company has in recent months been quietly working to repair its frayed relationship with Trump, who has long alleged that social media platforms, including those owned by Meta, censor conservative speech — accusations that were further inflamed when Facebook banned the then-president in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. Trump’s account was reinstated in 2023.
“I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump said on the campaign trail in 2024, suggesting he would reverse a looming ban on rival social media app TikTok to undercut Meta.
The personnel changes at Meta come less than three weeks before Trump’s inauguration, and just over a month after Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with Trump at Mar-A-Lago.
At Meta, Kaplan has been an advocate for allowing more speech from across the political spectrum on the platform. Martin, who joined the company in 2015 and helped guide its response to fallout over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that rocked the 2016 election, was also a campaign lawyer under Bush.
Clegg, a former member of the European Parliament, was a strategic hire for Facebook when he joined in 2018, using his political chops from the British government to lead the company’s lobbying efforts. At the time, the company’s warm relationship with the White House during the Obama administration was cooling, and it was facing unprecedented scrutiny in the wake of reports that it had shared unauthorized user data with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
Clegg became Meta’s president for global affairs in 2022, taking over much of former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s role when she stepped down. In his post Thursday, he said he’ll spend “a few months handing over the reins” at Meta before moving on “to new adventures.”
(Updates to add details from careers of Clegg, Kaplan starting in first paragraph.)
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