Nick Clegg to step down as Meta’s global affairs chief

Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, announced that he will step down later this year, paving the way for his deputy, former White House chief of staff Joel Kaplan, to become the company’s global policy chief.

Clegg, who was a British deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, joined Facebook – Meta’s predecessor – in 2018 to run its global affairs branch.

He was promoted in 2022, becoming in charge of all policy matters, which meant less involvement from CEO Mark Zuckerberg in that field.

Clegg’s successor Joel Kaplan, who joined Facebook in 2011, is the company’s current vice president of global public policy. Kaplan served eight years in the administration of Republican President George W Bush and worked as a lobbyist.

The move to promote him can be seen as a bid to become closer to the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump. 

“I look forward to spending the next few months handing over the reins to Joel before finally leaving Meta after so many enjoyable years at the company,” Clegg wrote in a post on LinkedIn.

Clegg has led on issues like the Big Tech company’s content policy and elections and spearheaded the establishment of Meta’s independent content oversight board.

“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,” Clegg added.

Most recently, he has spoken out against strict EU rules to regulate AI in recent months, citing innovation risks.

Meta has been subject to several investigations under the EU’s platform rules, the Digital Services Act (DSA), on how it handles disinformation and its policy to protect minors online.