Nick Clegg made headlines this week during his featured speaker appearance at SXSW London, which coincided with the announcement of his departure from Meta after seven years at the tech giant. Reflecting on his exit, Clegg joined the podcast The Rest Is Money to discuss how much the industry's culture has soured and mutated since he first arrived.
Speaking with the hosts, Clegg contrasted the current hyper-politicized environment with the landscape he entered in late 2018. "It was a completely different time," Clegg recalled, describing a Silicon Valley that was "still quite sort of, quite sort of happy-clappy, bit hippy-dippy, you know, very much left-leaning for sure." He pointed out that back then, "social media was a social thing. It was, like, about human beings."
According to Clegg, the industry's leaders have fundamentally abandoned their hands-off approach to Washington. Instead of shunning politics, which Clegg argues they did "sensibly" for a long time, tech executives—including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—have now leaned directly into political posturing.
As Clegg steps away from his role, his departure leaves a massive vacancy in Meta's global lobbying apparatus at a time when transatlantic tech relations are increasingly fraught. Whether his successor will maintain Clegg's diplomatic style or adopt Silicon Valley's newly aggressive political posture remains the central question for regulators in London and Brussels.