Why Nick Clegg was dethroned as ‘Master of the Metaverse’ (after incomes tens of millions) – and the place lots of his outdated associates imagine the ardent Remainer will find yourself subsequent…

The last time he lost his job it was at the whim of the voters repulsed by his duplicity. This time his end came in equally ruthless fashion, as the victim of political expediency.

If there is any consolation for Sir Nick Clegg in his departure from Facebook-owning Meta, as it realigns for a Donald Trump presidency, it is in the considerable sums of money he has trousered during his seven years in California‘s Silicon Valley.

As the former Liberal Democrat leader and his soon-to-be-former employers tried to apply the best possible gloss to his exit, the question was not whether he was pushed – but quite how hard.

‘Of course, his leaving is linked to the return of Trump to the White House,’ says a social media analyst. ‘How could it not be? Clegg is an obstacle to resetting Facebook‘s relationship with President Trump.’

The man who has made not one but two careers out of swallowing his principles, boasted of his achievements in what he described as ‘an adventure of a lifetime’. He insisted his replacement as Meta’s president of global affairs, a Republican insider, was ‘the right person for the right job at the right time’.

But it is hard to escape the view that just as he misjudged the British electorate who punished him and his party – then in coalition with the Tories – for reneging on his promise to scrap university tuition fees, his outspoken attack last month on Elon Musk, owner of Facebook rival X and a key Trump ally, was a massive blunder.

In an interview, Clegg suggested that Musk, the world’s richest man, was a ‘political puppet master’ who has turned X – formerly Twitter – into a ‘one man hyper-partisan hobby horse’.

Just how ill-advised those comments were became startlingly clear when it emerged that not only had Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg dined with the President-elect at his Florida mansion in Mar-a-Lago, but he had also pledged $1 million (£800,000) to his inauguration events.

It can hardly have helped that Sir Nick, who once said he would attend an anti-Trump protest, was closely involved in the decision in 2021 to ban the then-outgoing US president from Facebook and its sister platform Instagram over claims he had used the social media sites to incite the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol in Washington.

On this occasion, however, there was simply not enough time for the kind of nimble footwork he demonstrated when, not long before he joined Meta, he attacked big-tech companies for being ‘flagrantly, blatantly on the wrong side’, on matters such as tax.

Clegg then added: ‘I’m not especially bedazzled by Facebook. I actually find the messianic California new-world-touchy-feely culture a little grating. Nor am I sure that companies such as Facebook really pay all the tax they could.’

But that was then, and by the time Sir Nick had been unveiled as Zuckerberg’s number two with responsibility for ‘all policy matters’ at the social media behemoth, which also owns WhatsApp, such concerns no longer seemed quite so pressing.

Money, of course, can do all sorts of strange things to principles and there is no doubt that Britain’s one-time deputy prime minister has been handsomely rewarded for his years as ‘master of the Metaverse’.

His starting salary back in 2018 was reported to have been a cool £2.7 million but in recent times, due to bonuses and share options, he was said to be earning close to £11 million a year.

Just how lucrative the role has been can be judged from his recent off-loading of Meta stock holdings. In November it was disclosed that he had pocketed £6.1 million after disposing of 13,833 shares. That came on top of the reported £8.7 million of holdings he had sold in August.

Indeed, since 2022 Clegg has sold additional shares in the firm to the tune of around £12 million.

On top of that, he made a £3.6 million profit from the sale of his California mansion, a faux Queen Anne house on an acre of land, described by estate agents as a ‘jewel’ with ‘timeless and classic’ features.

The sale came after he and his lawyer wife, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, decided to relocate back to the UK with their three sons because work meant he was spending more time in Europe.

Little wonder then that former colleagues are speculating about just what Sir Nick will do next.

Thanks to the well-remunerated years at Meta he is unlikely to be seeking another multi-million-pound job in the private sector.

(His wife, who famously shunned the role of traditional Westminster wife when her husband was Lib Dem leader, continues to be a highly paid international trade lawyer.)

As a Europhile – and let’s not forget an unreconstructed Remainer – old Lib Dem friends say Clegg has his heart set on a job with the EU.

Europe runs through the veins of the Clegg family. He has a Dutch mother, his father is half Russian and he himself is fluent in French, German and Spanish.

The family owns a ten-bedroom chateau in Bordeaux, with swimming pool and acres of grounds, which has often been used by the former MP for Sheffield Hallam and his family for holidays.

Sir Nick’s first job after studying anthropology at Cambridge University was as an adviser to the then Tory EU trade commissioner, the late Lord (Leon) Brittan, who was a family friend. Clegg returned the favour by bringing Brittan back as a paid government adviser on trade to the Coalition government only weeks after he became deputy PM in the summer of 2010.

‘Nick’s first love is Europe and the EU,’ says a close friend. ‘It’s where he wants to be. He knows there is no return to domestic politics.

‘He has had his day, and the current party leader, Ed Davey, does not want a backseat driver. But a job within the EU would suit him.’

Quite what that would be is uncertain since Brexit Britain is no longer entitled to hold any positions as commissioners, but he could be in line for a role as a special envoy.

‘The EU is one of the biggest job creation schemes in the world,’ says a figure who served with Clegg in government. ‘Something could easily be created. He won’t need to worry about a salary, all he’d want is a big office and a big job.

‘I could envisage him working to create greater harmony across Europe – he would be an important adviser on social media.

‘And, of course, he would love to be an unofficial adviser to the European Commission on how to get Britain back into the EU, even though he would deny that.’

His famous flexibility would surely be no hindrance. As a young MP, Clegg pushed for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, even staging a walk-out of Parliament in 2008 over it.

After the 2016 referendum resulted in Brexit, he published a book calling on Westminster to ignore the vote and stay in the EU.

Another option, using his Meta riches, would be to set up a major think-tank like his political hero Tony Blair, who raised the cash for his by, in part, advising dodgy despots and oligarchs.

Blair is likely to be one of the first political figures he reaches out to.

‘They like and admire each other and are both heartbroken by Britain’s decision to leave the EU,’ says a figure who has worked with both men. ‘Blair still has excellent contacts across Europe.

‘And if Sir Keir Starmer, who knows Clegg from when they worked together on the Remain campaign, supported his candidacy for a Euro job as well as Blair, there would be some in Brussels who would think it was a clever move.’

A senior Lib Dem, however, is cautious.

‘Not everyone approved of him selling his soul to big-tech,’ he says. ‘Nick may need an element of atonement for having taken the Zuckerberg shilling.

‘He is not a popular figure in all Lib Dem circles. Zuckerberg has seemed imperious and indifferent to calls for the output of these social media giants to be more socially aware and not so destructive, especially for young people.

‘If Nick was trying to tame the social media giants, he failed.

‘He’s burnt a lot of bridges with the party faithful by going to Silicon Valley in the first place to make millions while we have carried on with the hard drudgery of party management in Britain.’

There was talk last night he would go to the House of Lords.

‘Well, he stuffed it with lots of his mates after we came out of government, while at the same time making clear his distaste for the place. He’s on record as saying it should be abolished,’ says the senior Lib Dem.

But while Clegg remains a divisive figure to some in the party, who blame him for the loss of 49 of their then 57 parliamentary seats in the 2015 election, Sir Ed Davey is not one of them.

He has wheeled out Clegg for dinners at Mosimann’s, the private members’ dining club in Belgravia, to which only rich donors are invited. There were at least four such dinners during 2024 alone organised by Hannah Billington, the Lib Dems’ director of fundraising.

That Clegg should now be in such demand is remarkable considering his political career ended in such ignominy, with the loss of his Sheffield seat in the 2017 election to a Jeremy Corbyn-supporting ex-barman who was later exposed as a fraudster.

At 57 and with two failures behind him, Clegg is now looking for a third career.

As for wife Miriam – otherwise known as Lady Clegg, though she hates to be called that – she was never entirely happy in money-bags Silicon Valley, once likening it to living in the Vatican.

‘It’s slightly insular, massively wealthy. It’s not too diversified and it is mostly run by men,’ she has commented.

She also complained that ‘you can go for days without seeing a single black face on the street’.

Other apercus included posting a picture on Instagram of the ‘British corner’ of her local supermarket. It depicted a row of Heinz spaghetti tins alongside which she mockingly wrote: ‘Brexiteers would be proud.’

Many will be wondering how a couple who pride themselves on their absence of doubt will pick up the threads of their former lives. Time will tell.