Meta policy chief to leave after transition into 2027

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Meta policy chief to leave

Highlights

Meta's chief global affairs officer Nick Kaplan will remain through the 2026 midterms into 2027 to manage a leadership transition with new bipartisan external affairs executives.
Kaplan played a pivotal role defending Meta's personalized advertising model from regulatory threats globally and steered the company through significant governmental changes in the U.S. and Europe.
The leadership change coincides with Meta intensifying its AI strategy, featuring Zuckerberg working directly with teams on projects like Muse and Muse Wonder and broadening its community-focused messaging.

Transition plan and policy legacy

As first reported by Axios, Kaplan is set to remain at Meta through the midterm elections and into 2027 to support a transition involving external affairs executives from both U.S. political parties who recently joined the leadership team.

Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, built Facebook's U.S. policy team from scratch and later led the broader global policy organization through a period of rapid expansion and repeated public controversies. Zuckerberg says in a statement that Kaplan has worked on virtually every difficult issue Meta has faced for more than 15 years, adding that there was no established playbook when he joined the company.

Before joining Meta, Kaplan served as deputy White House chief of staff under President George W. Bush and was also a Marine artillery officer. Associates tell Axios he has been a key internal advocate for consistency around Zuckerberg's free-expression principles, including in periods when that stance was unpopular.

Implications for Meta's regulatory and AI agenda

Kaplan has also played a central role in protecting Meta's personalized advertising business model from regulatory pressure in multiple markets, beginning in Europe. He helped guide Zuckerberg and senior executives through shifts in party control in both Congress and the White House, making him a central figure in the company's government relations strategy.

The leadership change unfolds while Meta is trying to project an optimistic case for artificial intelligence through its "The Future Is for Everyone" message and persuade communities that they can benefit from data center development. The company is also deepening its AI focus internally, with Zuckerberg moving his desk to work alongside teams behind Meta's fast-growing Muse and its first frontier model, Muse Wonder.

Our earlier article on U.S. AI data centers highlighted how the rapid buildout is running into financing strain, construction delays, and tightening power constraints. We noted that only a minority of planned projects appear credible, as higher borrowing costs, cost overruns, and local opposition make it harder for developers to deliver new capacity on time and maintain investor confidence.

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