Joel Kaplan, a longstanding executive who is well-known for his connections to Republican circles in Washington, will take over for him as the new executive.
Nick Clegg, who served as the deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom before becoming an executive at Meta, is terminating his employment with the social media business after seven years of service. The announcement of Clegg's departure was made through posts on X and Threads. He stated that "this is the right time for me to move on from my role as President, Global Affairs at Meta to pursue other opportunities."
The position of Clegg will be filled by Joel Kaplan, a policy professional with extensive experience and a former White House staffer to George W. Bush. Kaplan is well-known for his extensive connections to Republican circles in Washington. When Donald Trump assumes control of the White House, Kaplan, in his capacity as Chief Global Affairs Officer, will be in an advantageous position to facilitate interference on behalf of Meta, as Semafor describes.
In 2018, Clegg became a member of Meta, which was a year after the British voters voted that the former leader of the Liberal Democrats was not eligible for election. Following a number of controversies, including the Cambridge Analytica incident, the business that was formerly known as Facebook was attempting to repair its political relationships. He was promoted to the post of President of Global Affairs in 2022, which was a job that reported directly to Mark Zuckerberg (his prior function was handled by Sheryl Sandberg, who was serving as Meta's Chief Operating Officer at the time).
A number of Meta's most important and contentious choices were influenced by the former politician, who played a pivotal part in the process. He was the author of the company's public statements about the suspension and reinstatement of Donald Trump's Facebook account, and he publicly defended the company's choice to not apply its fact checking procedures to politicians. More recently, Clegg has voiced his disapproval of the way the European Union handles the regulation of technology, believing that the EU is impeding the development of artificial intelligence.
"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," Clegg said in a post on Threads. "This was a significant resetting to the relationship between 'big tech' and the societal pressures." The realms of technology and politics are very different from one another, and they will continue to intersect in unanticipated ways all over the world. I hope that I have been able to play some part in the effort to bridge these two sectors.
Prior to his official departure from the company, Clegg stated in a post on Facebook that he will spend the next "few months" working with Kaplan and "representing the company at a number of international gatherings in the first quarter of this year." This will take place before he formally leaves the company. No indication was given as to what he would do next.
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