Facebook parent Meta replaces president of global affairs Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, the company’s current political vice president and former Republican Party staffer.

The shakeup comes three weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and is the latest sign of how tech companies are positioning themselves for a new administration in Washington.

Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister, said he was stepping down and called the new year the right time to move on. He will be replaced by Kaplan, who will assume the title of Chief Global Affairs Officer.

Kaplan was an aide to former President George W. Bush and appeared on the NYSE in December alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance and Trump. As a personal friend, he also attended Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in 2018, which caused controversy at the social media company.

“I look forward to spending a few months handing over the reins – and representing the company at a number of international meetings in the first quarter of this year,” Clegg wrote in a memo to his employees posted to Facebook on Thursday shared.

Clegg joined the company in 2018 after a career in British politics with the Liberal Democrats, and he helped Meta withstand incredible scrutiny, particularly over the company’s influence on elections and its efforts to create damaging to control content. Clegg also helped the company navigate the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook shared user data with outside political consultants. He also represented the company in Washington and London, often at artificial intelligence panels and congressional hearings.

“My time at the company coincided with a significant realignment of the relationship between ‘Big Tech’ and societal pressures, manifested in new laws, institutions and norms impacting the sector,” Clegg wrote.

In his memo, Clegg said former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin would replace Kaplan as Meta’s vice president for global policy. He mentioned that Kaplan will work closely with David Ginsburg, the company’s vice president of global communications and public affairs.

“Nick: I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Meta and the world over the last seven years,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. They “have built a strong team to advance this work. I am pleased that Joel will be taking on this role next as he has extensive experience and insight into leading our policy work over many years.”

Semafor first reported the news.

REGARD: Meta: For this reason, Rosenblatt Securities has set an $811 price target on the stock