By Elizabeth Culliford
(Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that he had promoted policy chief Nick Clegg into a larger role to lead on all policy matters, signaling less involvement from Zuckerberg in the area.
“We need a senior leader at the level of myself (for our products) and Sheryl (for our business) who can lead and represent us for all of our policy issues globally,” Zuckerberg wrote, referring to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Clegg, who was a British deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, joined Facebook in 2018 to run its global policy organization. He has led on issues like Facebook’s content policy and elections and spearheaded its establishment of the company’s independent content oversight board.
“Nick will now lead our company on all our policy matters, including how we interact with governments as they consider adopting new policies and regulations, as well as how we make the case publicly for our products and our work,” Zuckerberg said in the post.
The CEO said the change would allow him to focus more on leading the company as it builds new products while Sandberg focused on the success of its business.
Clegg’s elevation to the role of “president, global affairs,” reporting to both Zuckerberg and Sandberg, comes ahead of U.S. midterm elections in November.
Clegg will also be tasked with handling regulatory issues as the company focuses on building the metaverse, a futuristic idea of immersive virtual environments.
“The next few years will be a crucial time for our company and our industry as new rules for the internet are written all over the world, and as we set out on our journey to help build the metaverse,” Sandberg wrote in a post.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York and Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Howard Goller)