Meta on Thursday named Joel Kaplan, a former executive who was a senior adviser to George W. Bush and is known for his Republican ties, as its new global policy chief, as the social media giant seeks to strengthen its ties with the administration. Trump's incoming.
Kaplan, 55, replaces Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain who had handled global policy and regulatory issues for Meta since 2018. In a post on his personal facebook page, Clegg, 57, said that Kaplan was “clearly the right person for the right job at the right time, ideally positioned to shape the company's strategy as social and political expectations around technology continue to evolve.”
Kevin Martin, who has worked at Meta on policy issues for years, will take over Kaplan's former role as vice president of public policy.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, thanked Clegg in a comment on his facebook post for making a “major impact in promoting Meta's voice and values around the world.”
Zuckerberg and Meta are among many in the tech industry who have increasingly worked to forge direct relationships with President-elect Donald J. Trump. Before the November election, Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, began reaching out to Trump with the goal of putting themselves in a position to potentially benefit their businesses.
Last month, Meta donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund, just weeks after Zuckerberg met Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Zuckerberg has sought to offload politics into the hands of his subordinates in recent years, after spending much of the 2010s traveling to Washington to appease Congress, which questioned the role of his social media apps in spreading misinformation. during the 2016 election. Zuckerberg dispatched Clegg to act as a sort of Meta's head of state, handling meetings with regulators globally and defending the company's political positions against government agencies at every turn. harder.
Still, Zuckerberg recently traveled to Mar-a-Lago to see Trump in person and repair a long-strained relationship. Trump had previously criticized Meta and Zuckerberg for trying to censor conservative voices.
Kaplan has many roots in conservatives and the Republican Party. After attending Harvard Law School, he clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and then served as President Bush's deputy chief of staff from 2006 to 2009. He joined facebook in 2011 at the urging of Sheryl Sandberg, his former COO and a friend of Mr. Kaplan.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who worked with Kaplan during the Bush administration, congratulated Kaplan and Martin in a statement Thursday and said he was “hopeful that their promotion signals a renewed commitment to free speech online.” . .” Cruz added that he hoped Meta would join x, the social media app owned by Elon Musk, “in the fight to protect freedom of expression for everyone.”
At times, Kaplan has been a polarizing figure within Meta. In 2018, he appeared in support of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an old friend, during Judge Kavanaugh's contentious confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. That sparked a rift among employees, many of whom expressed anger on internal message boards against Kaplan for tacitly backing Judge Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexually assaulting a high school classmate. Judge Kavanaugh denied the allegations.
Kaplan later apologized to Meta employees who were upset by his actions.
In a comment on Clegg's facebook post on Thursday, Kaplan called the change “bittersweet” and said he was “honored” to follow in Clegg's footsteps.
Clegg spent much of his time at Meta pushing its agenda on open source artificial intelligence, campaigning for the company in the European Union and repairing relationships in Washington.
“I am proud of the work I have been able to do leading and supporting teams across the company to ensure that innovation can go hand-in-hand with greater transparency and accountability, and new forms of governance,” Clegg said Thursday. He <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.facebook.com/nickclegg” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>saying He planned to stay in Meta for a few months, representing the company at international events before leaving.
