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Mark Zuckerberg continues his campaign for curing favor with the incoming Trump administration. After visiting Mar-a-Lago for dinner 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. the company’s most prominent Republican. Traffic lights at first reported on the news.
Joel Kaplan most recently served as deputy head of global policy under Nick Clegg, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2018 after serving as UK deputy prime minister under David Cameron. Clegg was something of a obedient attack dog for Zuckerberg over the years, serves as a voice of the company that defends from journalists and politicians on controversial issues. According to the 2022 book “An Ugly Truth”, Clegg advised Meta’s leadership that regulation was inevitable, so it was better for the company to come out in front and help create light-touch rules instead of stricter laws. He also advocated for whatabout-ism, or deflecting criticism of Meta by directing attention to China — something Zuckerberg did in his push to get TikTok 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. Traffic lights. “I’ve learned so much working with you and our entire team is better off for having this opportunity. You’ve made an important impact in advancing Meta’s voice and values around the world, as well as our vision for AI and the metaverse You have also built a strong team to take this work forward.
Whatever Zuckerberg really 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 also defended content moderation as necessary to protect audiences from harmful content, in stark contrast to Musk’s mission to eliminate all censorship.
Kaplan, meanwhile, earlier in his career served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, and said he discussed Meta internally. against restrictions on political speech as potentially harming conservatives disproportionately.
It makes sense for him to be named Meta’s new policy chief 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 took office, and was later distracted by the pandemic. This time will be different, with his incoming team that has already prepared a flurry of executive actions to be put in place in a few hours from its place.
Meta reinstated all of Trump’s accounts after banning them after the January 6 Capitol riots, and Zuckerberg over the summer went as far as sorry for the content censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic and promised not to be pressured again (millions of people died ignoring the COVID-19 measures). In general, Meta has de-prioritized news content in favor of AI generated engagement slop which is lighter in nature. Zuckerberg threw up his hands and said he doesn’t want to deal with divisive content.
Trump responded in kind to these moves, saying in October that he likes Zuckerberg “much better now.”
Zuckerberg, of course, isn’t the only leader who battled 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 also did pilgrimage to kiss the ring after being vociferously attacked by Trump over a variety of issues. At the end of the day, these leaders don’t want to incur Trump’s wrath and will do whatever it takes to protect their empires. Especially now that Musk, who has been critical of Silicon Valley executives and runs competing companies, has Trump’s ear and can influence policy, or put his companies in line for preferential treatment.
