(Reuters) – U.S. technology giant Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:) has appointed prominent Republican Joel Kaplan as chief global affairs officer, replacing Nick Clegg.
The change within Meta’s policy and communications teams comes ahead of the inauguration of newly-elected US President Donald Trump, as the company mends fences with a leader who has spoken out against its approach to political content and threatened to jail its CEO to put.
Kaplan previously reported to Clegg, the former British deputy prime minister and leader of the country’s center-left Liberal Democrats.
Another longtime Meta executive with a background in Republican politics, Kevin Martin, will take over Kaplan’s old job as head of global policy, Clegg said in social media posts Thursday.
“As a new year begins, I have concluded that this is the right time for me to step down from my role as President of Global Affairs at Meta,” Clegg wrote.
“Joel is 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 issues including content policy and elections, including the creation of the company’s independent oversight board.
Kaplan called the change “bittersweet news” in a response to Clegg’s Facebook post. Semafor previously reported on Kaplan’s appointment.
Kaplan served as deputy chief of staff for policy in the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush and joined Meta in 2011. While at the company, Kaplan faced accusations that he had preached political neutrality while advancing a conservative agenda, a charge leveled by the company. has denied.
For example, documents released by a Facebook whistleblower in 2021 revealed that some employees had accused him of making exceptions to content rules to keep Republican political figures happy.
Employees also became irked after Kaplan attended a 2018 Senate hearing investigating sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, who was later confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. The company issued a statement acknowledging “errors in the handling of the events.”
Companies across the board have rushed to secure favorable relations with Trump since his election victory in November.
Meta has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, a company spokesman told Reuters in December, a departure from past practice.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also expressed regret over past substantive decisions that were unpopular with conservatives and praised Trump’s response to an assassination attempt.
The overtures appear to have eased tension in the relationship between Trump and Meta, which infuriated the former president by removing him from office in 2021 following the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.
The president-elect has also accused Meta of suppressing content that would have harmed Biden in the 2020 election and criticized Zuckerberg’s donations to strengthen election infrastructure.
