:U.S. tech giant Meta Platforms has elevated prominent Republican Joel Kaplan to be its chief global affairs officer, replacing Nick Clegg.
The change atop Meta’s policy and communications teams comes in the run-up to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the company mends fences with a leader who has railed against its approach to political content and threatened to imprison its chief executive.
Kaplan previously reported to Clegg, who was formerly British deputy prime minister and leader of the country’s center-left Liberal Democrats.
Another long-time Meta executive with a background in Republican politics, Kevin Martin, will take over Kaplan’s old job running global policy, Clegg said in social media posts on Thursday.
“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,” Clegg wrote.
“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,” he said.
Clegg joined Meta in 2018 and has led on issues like content policy and elections, including the establishment of the company’s independent oversight board.
Kaplan called the change “bittersweet news” in a comment on Clegg’s Facebook post. Semafor earlier reported on Kaplan’s appointment.
Kaplan served as deputy chief of staff for policy in the administration of former Republican President George W Bush, joining Meta in 2011. While at the company, Kaplan has faced accusations that he has preached political neutrality while elevating a conservative agenda, a charge the company has denied.
Documents released by a Facebook whistleblower in 2021, for example, showed that some employees had accused him of making exceptions to content rules to keep Republican political figures happy.
Employees also chafed after Kaplan attended a Senate hearing in 2018 examining sexual assault allegations made against Brett Kavanaugh, later confirmed as Supreme Court justice. The company issued a statement acknowledging “mistakes handling the events.”
Businesses across the board have been rushing to ensure favorable relations with Trump since his November election win.
Meta has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, a company spokesperson told Reuters in December, in a departure from past practice.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also expressed regret over past content decisions unpopular with conservatives and praised Trump’s response to an assassination attempt.
The overtures appear to have reduced strain in the relationship between Trump and Meta, who infuriated the former president by booting him off its services in 2021 after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.
The president-elect has also accused Meta of suppressing content that would have hurt Biden in the 2020 election and criticized Zuckerberg’s donations to bolster election infrastructure.
