Meta has hired Henry Rodgers, the veteran chief national correspondent at The Daily Caller, the right-leaning news outlet co-founded by Tucker Carlson. Rodgers shared the news on his X account on Thursday, saying he was headed to work on public policy at Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
Rodgers, during his eight years at The Daily Caller, covered President Donald Trump closely, both during his time in and out of The White House.
Rodgers’ hiring comes as Zuckerberg has been criticized by many — including supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement — for his recently improved relationship with the president.
Zuckerberg was prominently featured at the White House for Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, sitting next to a number of other tech executives, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and X and Tesla boss Elon Musk. And Zuck — who, as the head of Meta, runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — championed the Trump Administration on his company’s earnings call last week, saying it was nice to have an administration that is “proud” of America’s biggest tech firms.
The pivot towards a warm relationship with Trump stands in contrast to where it was four years ago, when he “indefinitely” banned the president from Facebook and Instagram. At the time, Zuckerberg said that, following the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, “the risks” of keeping the president on the platforms were “simply too great.” Meta later reinstated Trump’s accounts in 2023. Last week, Meta settled a lawsuit filed by Trump following his ban for $25 million.
Rodgers joins Meta after Nick Clegg, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in England, left the company after seven years. Clegg had been the company’s vice president of global affairs and communications.
