Sir Nick Clegg is stepping down from his role as global affairs president at Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
The former deputy Prime Minister will be replaced by George W Bush’s ex-White House deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan.
The announcement comes just weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.
Announcing his departure, Clegg said: “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.”
Nick Clegg
PA
The ex-Sheffield Hallam MP described his time at the company as “an adventure of a lifetime”.
Clegg, who joined Facebook in 2018 just months after losing his parliamentary seat to Labour, reflected on the evolving relationship between technology and society during his tenure.
“My time at the company coincided with a significant resetting of the relationship between big tech and the societal pressures manifested in new laws, institutions and norms,” he said.
Having spent nearly two decades in European and British politics, the 57-year-old described gaining “a front row insight into what makes Silicon Valley such an enduring hub of world leading innovation”.
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Donald Trump
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“The pace and scale of change has been as dizzying as it has been ambitious,” Clegg added.
Endorsing his successor, Clegg praised Kaplan as “quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time”.
He noted that Kaplan would be “ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve”.
The leadership transition will also see Kevin Martin, former Federal Communications Commission chairman under George W Bush, taking over Kaplan’s previous position as vice president of global policy.
Mark Zuckerberg
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Clegg also said that he would spend “the next few months handing over the reins” to the new leadership team.
Looking ahead, he indicated that after the transition period, “then – as with each chapter in my lucky career in politics, Government and the private sector – I will move on to new adventures”.
Clegg’s announcement comes after a rift appeared to emerge with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg expressed his regret about Meta’s handling of the 2020 US Presidential Election and later lauded Trump for his response to July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
The 40-year-old also donated £786,000 to an inauguration fund for Trump via Meta.
Meanwhile, Clegg described the 45th President’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests as “abhorrent” and suggested X owner Elon Musk could emerge as a “political puppet-master” in Trump’s second term in the White House.
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