Former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg to leave global affairs post at Meta ahead of Donald Trump’s return to presidency
Meta’s president of global affairs, former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, is to leave the company and will hand over his position to Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican, in a move seen as a changing of the guard.
Clegg said in a social media post he would be leaving Meta after seven years but would spend “a few months handing over the reins” before moving on to “new adventures”.
Kaplan was previously deputy chief of staff in the White House during the George W Bush administration and has served as Meta’s vice-president of global public policy, a role in which he has overseen the firm’s relations with Republicans.
The shift comes ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the presidency later this month, at a time when tech companies have been rushing to curry favour with the president-elect.
Political shift
Trump has spoken harshly of Meta and its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in the past, threatening to jail him if he interfered with the 2024 election.
The relationship has become less fractious since Trump’s win, with Zuckerberg publicly congratulating the incoming president, donating to an inauguration fund and dining with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Clegg joined Meta in 2018 after losing his seat as an MP in 2017, a move that came on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
He has steered Meta, formerly Facebook, through various political storms including Trump’s Meta social media accounts being banned for two years following the Capitol riots in January 2020.
Clegg also oversaw the creation of the Oversight Board that oversees Meta’s content moderation decisions.
‘Gratitude and pride’
The former Liberal Democrat leader moved to Silicon Valley initially but returned to London in 2022 and has been expected to phase out of his tenure with Meta.
He said he felt “immense gratitude and pride” at what he had been part of.
“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,” he wrote.
“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.”