Nick Clegg’s departure comes shortly before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Meta’s Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg said on Jan.2 that he is stepping down from his role at the social media giant after nearly seven years. He will be replaced by prominent Republican and longtime policy executive Joel Kaplan.
The announcement comes shortly before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office.
In a statement on Facebook, Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister, described working at Meta as “an adventure of a lifetime.”
As a new year begins, now is the “right time” to move on, he said.
“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 wrote.
”I will be forever grateful to Mark and Sheryl Sandberg for taking me on in the first place – and to the many colleagues and teams I have had the good luck to work with ever since.“
During his time at the company, he led on key issues such as Facebook’s content policy, elections, and the establishment of an independent content oversight board.
Kaplan, his replacement, previously served as deputy chief of staff for policy under President George W. Bush.
He joined Facebook in 2011 as vice president of U.S. public policy, where he oversaw its relationships with policymakers at federal and state levels. He was later promoted to vice president of global public policy at Facebook.
Clegg praised Kaplan, whom he referred to as a good friend and close colleague in his statement.
“He will be able to build on what we have done together, and improve upon what I failed to get done,” Clegg said.
“Joel is quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time—ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve.”
Clegg said he will spend a few months “handing over the reins” to Kaplan and representing Meta at international gatherings in the first quarter of this year before moving on to new adventures.
The announcement comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November, just months after publicly praising him over his response to July’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.
