1 week ago
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A longtime political operative at Meta who played a key role in bridging ties between the company and President Donald Trump's administration is leaving.
Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, will leave after the midterm elections and a transition period, Axios first reported. Meta confirmed the report to Business Insider.
A veteran Marine Corps artillery officer, Kaplan is a Republican who served as an advisor and deputy chief of staff to former president George W. Bush.
Kaplan joined Meta in 2011. At Meta, he oversaw the company's response to policy issues ranging from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the end of its fact-checking program.
Kaplan helped repair a once-fraught relationship between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Trump after Meta temporarily suspended Trump's account following the January 6 riot.
Kaplan posted on X on Tuesday that he plans to spend time with his family and figure out what to do next.
Kaplan didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Kaplan has served as Meta's chief global affairs officer since 2025, succeeding former UK politician Nick Clegg. Other Meta executives will share his responsibilities, Axios reported.
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Charles Rollet is Business Insider's tech correspondent in San Francisco, where he focuses on breaking major news about the AI industry. In 2025, he led an investigation which revealed that Scale AI had inadvertently exposed confidential data about its workers and clients. In 2026, he was the first to break the news that Meta had halted a controversial keystroke tracking program.Prior to joining BI, Charles worked at TechCrunch covering startups and VC in San Francisco. Before that, he was based in Southeast Asia for a decade, where his work won a Gerald Loeb award and was nominated for a Society of Publishers in Asia award. His reporting on the surveillance industry led to US human rights sanctions on five Chinese security camera manufacturers.Charles is especially interested in how frontier AI models are built and trained. He has a master's degree in business reporting from NYU and a bachelor's degree in history from Northwestern.You can contact Charles securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811. Charles keeps sources anonymous. Please use a non-work device to reach out.
