Exclusive: Joel Kaplan leaving Meta after 15 years as policy chief

Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, will leave Meta next year after 15+ years as Mark Zuckerberg's top Washington adviser.Kaplan — a Harvard Law graduate and former Marine artillery officer who was deputy White House chief of staff for President George W. Bush — built Facebook's U.S. policy team from scratch. Kaplan led the global policy team through years of massive growth and controversy. Why it matters: Kaplan, who helped Meta build a strong relationship with the incoming Trump administration, was a leading internal advocate for consistency on Zuckerberg's free-expression principles, even when that was unpopular, associates tell Axios. Zuckerberg, Meta's founder and CEO, told Axios in a statement: "Joel has worked on virtually every tough issue Meta has faced for more than 15 years.""When he arrived," Zuckerberg added, "there was no playbook for ensuring our products would be available to the billions of people around the world who now rely on them. And throughout all of it, he's been a strong advocate for our policies, and a friend to me."Zoom in: Kaplan protected the company's personalized-ads business model from regulatory attacks worldwide, starting in Europe.…

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