Meta’s new head of global policy Joel Kaplan has close Republican ties

Jan 3

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Simone Del Rosario Business Correspondent

By Simone Del Rosario (Business Correspondent), Brent Jabbour (Senior Producer), Emma Stoltzfus (Video Editor), Mohammed Ali (Motion Graphics Designer)

Meta is putting a Republican in charge of global policy just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes back the White House. Joel Kaplan is a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush and has close ties to the Republican Party. He’ll replace former deputy prime minister of Britain Nick Clegg.

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Clegg said it was the “right time” for him to move on as Meta’s president of global affairs in a Facebook post.

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“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 wrote.

Joel Kaplan (far right) is pictured in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in 2007. Kaplan served as President George W. Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Getty Images.

Kaplan has been at Facebook since 2011, most recently as Clegg’s deputy. In a comment on Clegg’s post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the former Liberal Democrat party statesman he’s grateful for his service over the past seven years.

“I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years,” Zuckerberg said.

The switchover comes as Meta cozies up to Trump ahead of the White House switchover. Meta recently donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, a break from tradition. Meta did not donate to President Joe Biden’s inauguration or Trump’s first one.

The donation came after Zuckerberg visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the election. Trump has previously called Facebook a “true Enemy of the People” and accused Zuckerberg and his wife of using election donations to boost Democratic voter turnout.

As Zuckerberg tries to smooth things over with the future president, Clegg’s politics might have become a hurdle if he had stayed. He didn’t shy away from sharing his thoughts. Just this past month, he said on a BBC podcast that X owner Elon Musk, who is very close to Trump, could become a “political puppet master.”

“Elon Musk is obviously now playing an outsized role in both the election and now the formation of the new U.S. administration,” Clegg said.

Meanwhile, Kaplan has previously faced pressure for his Republican ties. He once apologized to Meta staffers after he was spotted sitting behind his close friend Brett Kavanaugh during Kavanaugh’s contentious Supreme Court nomination hearing.

But those ties could help Meta navigate a new terrain today. Among those praising Kaplan’s promotion is Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who called Kaplan a friend of 25 years.

Congratulations. Both Joel and Kevin have been friends of mine for 25 years, and I am hopeful that their promotion signals a renewed commitment to free speech online. For the past decade, Big Tech has been far too eager to censor and silence, I hope that Meta will now join X in…
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 2, 2025

“I am hopeful that their promotion signals a renewed commitment to free speech online,” Cruz wrote on X. “For the past decade, Big Tech has been far too eager to censor and silence, I hope that Meta will now join X in fighting to protect free speech for everyone.”

Kaplan’s Facebook profile is pretty bare. His only post of 2024 is one sporting a photo of him with Vice President-elect JD Vance, taken when Trump rang the New York Stock Exchange bell.

Tags: Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump, Facebook, inauguration, JD Vance, Joel Kaplan, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, New York Stock Exchange, Nick Clegg, Republicans, Social Media, Ted Cruz

[Simone Del Rosario]

Meta is putting a Republican in charge of global policy just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes back the White House.

Joel Kaplan is a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush and has close ties to the Republican party. He’ll replace former deputy prime minister of Britain Nick Clegg in the top spot.

The way Clegg tells it, it “is the right time” for him to move on as Meta’s president of global affairs. In a Facebook post, he 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.”

Joel Kaplan has been at Facebook since 2011, most recently as Clegg’s right-hand man.

In a comment on Clegg’s post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the former Liberal Democrat Party statesman he’s grateful for his service the past seven years. He said, “I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years.”

As Zuckerberg tries to smooth things over with the future president, Clegg’s politics might have become a hurdle if he had stayed. He didn’t shy away from sharing his thoughts. Just this past month, he said X owner Elon Musk – who is very close to Trump – could become a political puppet master.

But those ties could help Meta navigate a new terrain today.

Among those praising Kaplan’s promotion is Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who called Joel a friend of 25 years. He wrote on X, “I am hopeful that their promotion signals a renewed commitment to free speech online. For the past decade, Big Tech has been far too eager to censor and silence, I hope that Meta will now join X in fighting to protect free speech for everyone.”

Kaplan’s Facebook profile is pretty bare. His only post of 2024 is this one, sporting a photo of him with Vice President-elect JD Vance taken when Trump rang the New York Stock Exchange bell.

For SAN I’m SDR.