Joe Kaplan is leaving Meta after 15 years (Picture: AP)
Axios first reported the move, which ends a run that began in 2011, when Facebook had no real policy operation in the US capital and Kaplan was asked to build one from the ground up. Kaplan only took the top policy job in January 2025, replacing former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg weeks before Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Kaplan faced accusations of favouring conservative interests in content decisions, a charge Meta has denied, and employees were upset when he attended Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2018. He recently led Meta’s teen safety settlement with 52 US state and territory attorneys general.
He shielded Meta’s personalised ads business from regulatory attacks worldwide, starting in Europe, and guided Zuckerberg through several changes of party control in Congress and the White House, according to Axios. Associates told Axios he pushed internally for Zuckerberg’s free-expression principles to be applied consistently, even when that was unpopular. Zuckerberg said in a statement that Kaplan had “worked on virtually every tough issue Meta has faced” during his time there.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer and Mark Zuckerberg ‘s top Washington adviser for over a decade and a half, will leave the company next year. The timing is what makes this exit significant. He was widely seen as the executive who helped Meta repair its strained relationship with Trump, and his departure leaves the company redrawing its Washington playbook just as the US midterms approach. A Harvard Law graduate and former Marine artillery officer, Kaplan was deputy White House chief of staff for policy under President George W. Bush before joining Facebook. His tenure had its share of friction. Chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney, a former Trump trade official and ex-Microsoft general counsel, picks up policy duties. Tucker Bounds, a former spokesman for the late Senator John McCain and a Meta veteran of more than a dozen years, was named global head of communications and public affairs last month.
Brian Rice, once an aide to former Secretary of State John Kerry, was promoted earlier this year to head US government affairs.