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Joel Kaplan
Joel David Kaplan (born 1969) is an American political advisor, lobbyist, and attorney. In January 2025, Kaplan was announced as president of global affairs of Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook, succeeding Nick Clegg. He was previously the company's vice president of global public policy since 2014.
A longtime Republican political operative, Kaplan served eight years in the George W. Bush administration, including as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.
Within Facebook, Kaplan has been described as a strong conservative voice. He has helped place conservatives in key positions in the company, and advocated for the interests of right-wing websites Breitbart News and The Daily Caller within the company. He has successfully advocated for changes in Facebook's algorithm to promote the interests of right-wing publications and successfully prevented Facebook from closing down groups that were alleged to have circulated fake news, arguing that doing so would disproportionately target conservatives.
Joel David Kaplan was born in 1969,[citation needed] and raised in Weston, Massachusetts, the third child of his father, an attorney for municipal unions, and his mother, a college administrator (both reportedly liberal Democrats). He attended Harvard University, briefly dating his future Meta colleague, Sheryl Sandberg in his first year, and became active as a Student Democrat, including championing desegregated student housing. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard in 1991. According to a friend of Kaplan's at Harvard, campus demonstrations there opposing the U.S. invasion of Kuwait during the Gulf War—which included wearing gas masks, and chanting Vietnam-era slogans—"left many students cold"; Benjamin Woffard, writing for Wired Magazine, associates those events with a shift in Kaplan's politics, noting that by the end of end of his senior year, he had omitted activities with the Democrats from his yearbook entry.
After college, he served as an Artillery Officer in the United States Marine Corps for four years. He then earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1998.
Kaplan participated as a Democrat during his college years, including successful election at local party caucus as an alternative delegate, and has been described as being an active conservative Democrat during the early-1990s.[according to whom?] After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court. He registered as a Republican in the late-1990s.
Kaplan worked as a policy advisor on George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, during which he was a participant in the Brooks Brothers riot on November 22, 2000.
From 2001 to 2003 he was special assistant to the president for policy within the White House Chief of Staff’s office. Then he served as deputy director of the Office of Management And Budget, serving under Joshua Bolten. While at the OMB, in 2006, Kaplan said the administration would cut the deficit by half by 2009.
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Joel Kaplan
Joel David Kaplan (born 1969) is an American political advisor, lobbyist, and attorney. In January 2025, Kaplan was announced as president of global affairs of Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook, succeeding Nick Clegg. He was previously the company's vice president of global public policy since 2014.
A longtime Republican political operative, Kaplan served eight years in the George W. Bush administration, including as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.
Within Facebook, Kaplan has been described as a strong conservative voice. He has helped place conservatives in key positions in the company, and advocated for the interests of right-wing websites Breitbart News and The Daily Caller within the company. He has successfully advocated for changes in Facebook's algorithm to promote the interests of right-wing publications and successfully prevented Facebook from closing down groups that were alleged to have circulated fake news, arguing that doing so would disproportionately target conservatives.
Joel David Kaplan was born in 1969,[citation needed] and raised in Weston, Massachusetts, the third child of his father, an attorney for municipal unions, and his mother, a college administrator (both reportedly liberal Democrats). He attended Harvard University, briefly dating his future Meta colleague, Sheryl Sandberg in his first year, and became active as a Student Democrat, including championing desegregated student housing. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard in 1991. According to a friend of Kaplan's at Harvard, campus demonstrations there opposing the U.S. invasion of Kuwait during the Gulf War—which included wearing gas masks, and chanting Vietnam-era slogans—"left many students cold"; Benjamin Woffard, writing for Wired Magazine, associates those events with a shift in Kaplan's politics, noting that by the end of end of his senior year, he had omitted activities with the Democrats from his yearbook entry.
After college, he served as an Artillery Officer in the United States Marine Corps for four years. He then earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1998.
Kaplan participated as a Democrat during his college years, including successful election at local party caucus as an alternative delegate, and has been described as being an active conservative Democrat during the early-1990s.[according to whom?] After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court. He registered as a Republican in the late-1990s.
Kaplan worked as a policy advisor on George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, during which he was a participant in the Brooks Brothers riot on November 22, 2000.
From 2001 to 2003 he was special assistant to the president for policy within the White House Chief of Staff’s office. Then he served as deputy director of the Office of Management And Budget, serving under Joshua Bolten. While at the OMB, in 2006, Kaplan said the administration would cut the deficit by half by 2009.
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