The Scoop
Meta is revamping its global policy team, with President Nick Clegg stepping down and being replaced by Joel Kaplan, his deputy and the company’s most prominent Republican, people familiar with the matter said.
Kaplan, who was White House Deputy Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, has been one of the most forceful voices inside Meta against restrictions on political speech, arguing internally that such policies would disproportionately mute conservative voices. Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister and ex-leader of the country’s Liberal Democrats, joined Meta in 2018 to lead its policy and lobbying efforts and was named president in 2022.
The shift, three weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, comes as US companies are embracing the president-elect, courting his inner circle, and backing away from progressive stances many had embraced in recent years. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — whom Trump previously threatened to jail — dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and congratulated the president-elect on his win, one of many big tech executives to do so.
Meta’s political operation is now well placed for a Republican-dominated Washington: Its just-elevated vice president of global public policy, Kevin Martin, was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission by President George W. Bush, and its general counsel, Jennifer Newstead, was the top legal adviser to the Trump State Department from 2017 until joining Meta in 2019.
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Meta and the world these past seven years,” Zuckerberg said of Clegg in a statement. “I’ve learned so much working with you and our whole team is better for having this opportunity. You’ve made an important impact advancing Meta’s voice and values around the world, as well as our vision for AI and the metaverse. You’ve also built a strong team to carry this work forward. I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years.”
— Ben Smith contributed to this report
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Clegg joined Meta in 2018 when the company was still reeling from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved the political consultancy inappropriately accessing the profiles of 50 million Facebook users. He became the company’s public face, taking over that role from Sheryl Sandberg, who left in 2022.
With his understated style, Clegg helped Meta win back goodwill from politicians in several global capitals and was invited to the White House to discuss AI policy. He also expanded the company’s influence in Brussels, including when it comes to shaping guardrails around artificial intelligence, and elsewhere.
But Clegg also retained his own, center-left public profile and colleagues assumed he would at some point return to a political career in the UK. Last fall, he criticized Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest advisers these days, as a “puppet master” who had turned X into a “one man, sort of hyper-partisan and ideological hobby horse.” And he has advocated continuing to police online speech. “We unavoidably have to,” he said in September when asked about content moderation.
Liz’s view
Kaplan is the right man for the moment. Corporate priorities have changed quickly since Nov. 5, well beyond the token tinkering that often accompanies a change of administration. Executives once on Trump’s enemies list have come to Mar-a-Lago bearing gifts — Zuckerberg brought a pair of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses — and a major attitude adjustment.
In part, that’s because they want things out of this administration, and Trump’s 180 on visas for high-skilled workers, a priority for Silicon Valley in particular, was an early win for Musk over rival advisers like immigration hawk Stephen Miller. CEOs are also afraid of MAGA retribution and wary of the conservative shift in their own employee and customer bases. Progressive policies around diversity are deeply out of fashion. So is content moderation, as Musk’s free-for-all version of X has defied its critics.
Room for Disagreement
The tech industry’s turn toward Trump has drawn criticism, and warnings, from Democrats, and some concerns in the industry that they may be overcorrecting as control of the White House seesaws between the parties.
Eugene Robinson wrote in the Washington Post: “Business leaders should remember what it is about our system that has allowed their companies to grow and thrive: the rule of law and the impartiality of justice; immigration policies that welcome brains, talent and ambition from around the world; ample funding for basic research that leads to world-changing breakthroughs. Government shapes this landscape, and Trump threatens to alter it dramatically.”
Notable
- Wired’s long read on how Kaplan “came to rule political speech on Facebook, command one of the largest lobbies in DC, and guide Zuck through disaster—and straight into it.”