Mark Zuckerberg is continuing his campaign to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration. After visiting Mar-a-Lago to dine with the incoming president, and along with other tech leaders donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund (how much money does an inauguration really cost?), Zuckerberg has now replaced the head of Meta’s political arm with the company’s most prominent Republican. Semafor earlier reported on the news.
Joel Kaplan has most recently served as the deputy head of global policy under Nick Clegg, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2018 after serving as the UK’s deputy prime minister under David Cameron. Clegg has been something of an obedient attack dog for Zuckerberg over the years, serving as a voice of the company defending it from journalists and politicians over controversial issues. According to the 2022 book “An Ugly Truth,” Clegg advised leadership at Meta that regulation was inevitable, so it was best for the company to get out in front and help create light-touch rules instead of more stringent laws. He also advocated for whatabout-ism, or sidestepping criticism about Meta by directing attention towards China—something Zuckerberg has done in his push for TikTok to be banned.
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Meta and the world these past seven years,” Zuckerberg said of Clegg in a statement to Semafor. “I’ve learned so much working with you and our whole team is better for having this opportunity. You’ve made an important impact advancing Meta’s voice and values around the world, as well as our vision for AI and the metaverse. You’ve also built a strong team to carry this work forward. I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years.”
Whatever Zuckerberg truly feels about Trump, he is ultimately a capitalist and will do whatever is in the best interest of his company. Clegg recently criticized Trump’s de-facto vice president Elon Musk, saying in an interview with the BBC that X is a “one-man, hyper-partisan, ideological hobbyhorse.” Clegg has also defended content moderation as necessary to protect audiences from harmful content, in stark contrast to Musk’s mission to eliminate any and all censorship.
Kaplan, meanwhile, earlier in his career served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, and has reportedly argued internally at Meta against restrictions on political speech as potentially harming conservatives disproportionately.
It makes sense for him to be appointed Meta’s new leader of policy as Trump enters his second and final term, more aggressive and ready to attack than in his first. Trump had no experience in politics when he last took office, and was later distracted by the pandemic. This time will be different, with his incoming team reportedly already preparing a flurry of executive actions to put into place within hours of taking office.
Meta has reinstated all of Trump’s accounts after banning them following the January 6 Capitol riots, and Zuckerberg over this summer went so far as to apologize for censoring content during the COVID-19 pandemic and vowed to not be pressured again (millions of people have died ignoring COVID-19 measures). In general, Meta has de-prioritized news content in favor of AI-generated engagement slop that is more light-hearted in nature. Zuckerberg has thrown up his hands and said he does not want to deal with divisive content.
Trump has responded in kind to these moves, saying back in October that he likes Zuckerberg “much better now.”
Zuckerberg, of course, is not the only leader who tussled with Trump during his first administration only to change his tune now. Leaders including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple CEO Tim Cook have also made the pilgrimage to kiss the ring after previously being vociferously attacked by Trump over a variety of issues. At the end of the day, these leaders do not want to catch Trump’s ire again and will do what it takes to protect their empires. Especially now that Musk, who has been critical of Silicon Valley leaders and runs his own competing companies, has the ear of Trump and can influence policy, or put his enterprises in line for preferential treatment.