Swapping Silicon Valley for Kings Cross: Nick Clegg becomes latest Meta boss to head to London
London appears to be becoming the new Silicon Valley for Meta, as Facebook’s parent firm’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg makes his way back to the capital.
The news comes just a day after the Financial Times leaked the fact that head of Instagram Adam Mosseri would be moving across the pond.
It is understood that former deputy Prime Minister Clegg will split his time between California and the UK.
Since taking the role in 2018, Clegg has been in charge of handling policy and political affairs for the tech giant: from deciding the company’s approach in Ukraine and Russia, to handling the leak of Frances Haugen’s ‘Facebook files’.
Speaking with the FT last year, Clegg said he was a “European at heart”, making his move back to the capital a logical one.
Meanwhile, Mosseri’s relocation to Meta’s King’s Cross offices is focused on driving a bigger creator community on Instagram and help users build a business on their platform.
On the move, a Meta spokesperson told City A.M: “Given the global nature of his role, Adam will be temporarily based out of London later this year. London is already Meta’s largest engineering hub outside of the US, with over 4,000 employees across our offices, including a dedicated Instagram product team with people focused on building long term solutions for creators.”-
TikTok stars have been a major tenet of the Chinese firm’s success, providing influencers a way to earn a decent living on the platform.
While there is already a dedicated Instagram product team based in London, Meta is keen to tap into this influencer push, and just last week two new different versions of your Facebook feed, which introduced TikTok style content.
Instagram launched its own copy-cat feature called ‘Reels’ last year, which allows users to watch short-video clips, just like TikTok.
Meta were not immediately available for comment.