Meta's India Public Policy Head, Who Quit Yesterday, Set To Join Samsung

Rajiv Aggarwal, the former public policy head of Meta Platform Inc. for India, is set to join Samsung Electronics Co.'s local unit, taking up similar responsibilities at the South Korean company, reported Bloomberg quoting people familiar with the matter.

This comes a day after Facebook's parent company Meta announced that Mr Aggarwal had stepped down from his post along with WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose.

According to the report, Mr Aggarwal's new position at Samsung involves liaising and lobbying with government officials on domestic policy matters. He will take charge in December, a source said on the condition of anonymity as Samsung hasn't publicly announced the appointment of Mr Aggarwal yet.

Rajiv Aggarwal earlier served as the head of South Asia policy at Uber Technologies Inc.

Just a week ago, Meta announced that it reduced the size of its team by about 13%, laying off more than 11,000 employees. The social media giant has been battling high costs and witnessing a weak advertising market. 

In a message to its employees, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said, "We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1."

Mr Zuckerberg also said that Meta will be paying "16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap" to the employees laid off.

Meta also confirmed that both Rajiv Aggarwal and Ajit Mohan had quit. Meta's India head, Ajit Mohan, had also resigned before the layoff to join rival social media platform Snap. "Ajit has decided to step down from his role at Meta to pursue another opportunity outside of the company," the Vice President of Global Business Group at Meta, Nicola Mendelsohn, said in a statement.