Nick Clegg has been hired to lead Facebook’s battle over regulation and fake news scandals despite being a previous critic of the tech industry’s “jiggery-pokery” over tax avoidance.
The former deputy prime minister and LibDem leader was wooed personally by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg to take the lucrative job as head of global affairs and communications based in California.
As an ex-minister and Brussels insider who campaigned to remain in the EU, he will provide the company with access to politicians and civil servants in Westminster and the EU as both gear up to tighten regulation on fake news, online harm and privacy.
Labour said it was "a damning indictment of the sorry state of our country's politics" that he was becoming a lobbyist for the firm while it was under investigation both in the UK and by the European Union. Other critics questioned how he could be independent against charges of political bias.
Sir Nick initially rejected it in early summer but was contacted by Ms Sandberg while on holiday walking in the Alps before being flown to San Francisco to meet Mr Zuckerberg in his garden. He decided to take the job after dinner with his wife Miriam and the pair at Mr Zuckerberg’s house, according to the BBC.
Sir Nick, who took a prominent role in the campaign for a second "People's Vote" Brexit referendum, will move permanently to the firm's Menlo Park headquarters in California's Silicon Valley with his wife, a lawyer, and three sons in January, two months before the UK leaves the EU.
Experts estimated he could be in line for a salary of at least $350,000 a year plus 50pc bonus and stock options. “It’s not cheap living in the Valley but it could easily add up to $1m," said a partner at a London recruitment firm.
Two years ago, following the controversy over the role of fake news on Facebook in swinging the US election, Sir Nick criticised the “messianic” and “touchy feely” culture of the company as well as its tax arrangements.
“The jiggery-pokery of tax planning by the large multinational tech companies is also guaranteed to inflame public opinion. It may all be impeccably legal but the impression that less tax is being paid than can reasonably be expected remains,” he said.
Philip Hammond has threatened a digital tax on tech giants. Company accounts released earlier this month showed Facebook paid £15.8m UK tax last year despite recording £1.3bn in British sales.
Sir Nick who will become the most senior politician from Europe to work in Silicon Valley will replace Elliot Schrage who stepped down in June and report to Sandberg. According to the BBC, he sought reassurances that he would be in the inner circle, "in the black box"
He said he would not speak out on Brexit once he started the job in London later this month. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to make this move until Brexit had happened or perished in Parliament."
