Meta chooses an executive linked to the Republicans as head of global affairs

Nick Clegg, the head of global affairs at Meta, has announced his departure from the company and will be replaced by Joel Kaplana longtime policy executive with deep Republican ties, a change that comes just weeks after Donald Trump return to the White House.

«As we begin a new year, I have come to the conclusion that this “It is the right time to leave my role as president of global affairs at Meta”wrote Clegg through a post on Facebook where he announced his decision to leave the technology company behind social networks such as Facebook or Instagram.

Nick Clegg joined the company in 2018, then called Facebook, after almost twenty years in the British and European public sphere. The former British deputy prime minister worked at the European Commission and was an MEP for five years. Now, he will replace him as president of global affairs at Meta Joel Kaplanwho worked alongside the president George W. Bush from 2006 to 2009, and has been associated with Facebook since 2011 as vice president of public policy.

Republican Joel Kaplan to become president of global affairs at Meta

Clegg will remain linked to the company in the coming months, but the transition of the position to Kaplan is effective immediately, as indicated from CNN.

The until now president of global affairs at Meta highlighted that Kaplan is the right person to take over in this position “He is ideally positioned to shape the company’s strategy as social and political expectations around the technology continues to evolve,” he highlighted.

“I am grateful for everything you have done for Meta during these last seven years,” he said. Mark Zuckerberg about Nick Clegg’s work in the company through a statement. In this sense, the Facebook founder highlighted that Clegg has played an important role in promoting “Meta’s voice and values ​​around the world”, as well as his vision on artificial intelligence and the metaverse. For his part, Zuckerberg assured that he was “excited to have Joel take on this role next, given his depth of experience and knowledge leading our policy work for many years.”

This move could mark an improvement in relations between Meta and Donald Trump, who has openly criticized the company’s approach to political content, and has even gone so far as to threaten the company with jailing Zuckerberg for “conspiring against him in 2020.”