The President of Meta’s Global Affairs team, Nick Clegg, is stepping down from his position at the company, the executive announced in a tweet on Thursday.
Clegg, Meta’s politically centrist policy chief since 2018, will be replaced by one of the company’s most prominent Republican executives, Joel Kaplan. Clegg noted on X that Kaplan is “clearly the right person for the right job at the right time.” This high-profile leadership change is happening just three weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The news was previously reported by Semafor.
“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,” said Clegg in a tweet. “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.”
Much of the technology world is trying to join Trump’s good graces ahead of his second term. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated $1 million to the President-elect’s inaugural fund in December, and personally dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November. Other tech executives, such as Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, have also reportedly dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago following his second election win.
By appointing a Republican to head Meta’s policy team, the company may be signaling they’re willing to work more closely with conservatives in the incoming administration. Meta previously faced scrutiny from Republicans who alleged Meta’s content moderation skewed to center-left politics, and silenced right-wing voices. This included the company’s decision to ban Trump’s social media accounts following the January 6th insurrection.
In the last year, Meta has made a concerted effort to appease Republicans. Meta removed all restrictions on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts ahead of the 2024 election. In August, Zuckerberg sent a letter to House Republicans in which he apologized for bending to pressure from the Biden Administration to “censor certain COVID-19 content.”
Meta did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.