Davos 2026: Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan 1/23/26

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0:56Our ambition is to build personal superintelligence, which means putting superintelligence in the hands of everyone. Meta's chief of global affairs, Joel Kaplan, on our set at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Meta is sharpening its edge as AI dominates both consumer taste and energy demands. We've got a real lead on wearables, which we think is going to be the next computing technology that actually brings that personal superintelligence to bear. And the geopolitics at play in large language models. How this American company views the AI race against China. It's the most critical battle that we'll have over the coming years for both our national and economic security.

1:38But that's a battle that not only the U.S., but all of the Western democracies have a stake in. I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. Squawk Pod reports from Davos 2026, Meta's Joel Kaplan begins right now.

2:00As you know by now, Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin were at the World Economic Forum in the Alps this week with world leaders and tech leaders like this next one. Joel Kaplan is Meta's chief global affairs officer, and he had a long career outside of tech before joining Facebook in 2011. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and then he served as deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush. When he joined what was then Facebook, he encouraged Mark Zuckerberg to engage with Washington, growing the company's lobbying organization and then lobbying spend. And later, he encouraged Zuckerberg to engage directly with President Trump during Trump's first administration.

2:47Now, Meta plans to invest$600 billion in building out AI infrastructure like data centers over the next few years. And it's doubling down on nuclear energy to power it all. Kaplan sat down with our anchors, Joe, Becky, and Andrew, on our outdoor set in Davos, Switzerland.

3:06Andrew Ross Sorkin:Joel, it's great to have you on the broadcast. Great to be here. Thanks, Andrew. So we've been having this sort of running debate with all sorts of business leaders this morning, especially in the AI, big tech, hyperscaler space about the economics of it, about whether it all works, whether it all maps out. You're spending an extraordinary amount of money, but you're also doing it slightly differently, which is in some cases you've actually partnered with others. And I'm thinking of Blue Owl and the like in terms of private credit so that you're not actually paying for all of it when you're building some of these data centers.

3:34Andrew Ross Sorkin:How are you thinking about it and how do you think the way you're thinking about it may be different than some of the others? Well, thanks, Andrew. I mean, the first thing is what we're trying to build. Our ambition is to build personal superintelligence, which means putting superintelligence in the hands of everyone. We've got a platform that serves 3.5 billion people every day, so we have some real advantages there. And we are spending a lot of money to build the massive data center and power infrastructure necessary to bring that vision to fruition. and we're confident that with the right models and the right products, we're going to be able to build personal super intelligence and empower everyone.

4:07Andrew Ross Sorkin:But in terms of offsetting some of that cost, I mean, right now, I think you were probably on the sort of edge of the envelope for doing it in terms of the economics of doing it that way compared to some of the others. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to get into too many of the details of the financing, just to say we've got a strong core business that helps us fund and finance this infrastructure investment, and we're going to look at lots of different ways to bring the strategic capital to bear to make sure that we can fund that infrastructure going forward. Where do you think meta is ultimately right now in the AI race, which is to say we talk a lot about OpenAI, we talk a lot about Google and Gemini, you can go down the list, but we don't talk yet at the same sort of cadence about Lama, which is the model that you guys have been working on for a long time.

4:53Yeah, so we bring a lot of advantages to the race. Like I said, we've got the 3.5 billion people using it. We've got a real lead on wearables, which we think is going to be the next computing technology that actually brings that personal super intelligence to bear because glasses, the partnership we have with Ray-Ban and Oakley, glasses lets AI see what you see, hear what you hear, talk to you throughout the day. So we think that's the right form factor to bring AI to people. We've got some work to do to catch up on the frontier with our models. I think we're going to get there this year, and then we're going to match that with our distribution.

5:27Andrew Ross Sorkin:But is it the model or the other thing is distribution? Sorry, on just surface area. So you have amazing surface area, meaning I am as addicted, I hate to say it, to the gram, as the kids say, as anybody. Same with WhatsApp. Same with people going to a classic blue Facebook, right? The question is how that ultimately translates into the place I go to to either chat with a bot or do other things for me. Yeah, so right now we already have a billion monthly active users using Meta AI across our services. So we start with that advantage. Now we've got to bring the frontier models to bear and we've got to release the products that make people want to come and use that as frequently as they need in their daily lives to make them more effective, more productive, and just make them enjoy the things that they're doing online.

6:12Andrew Ross Sorkin:Joel, how do you navigate the political headwinds that are coming out of Washington, coming out of the European Union, coming out of so many different places? Because it feels to me like businesses that get caught in the cross currents are facing much choppier waters than they were before. Yeah, well, we've had the advantage that President Trump, since he came into office, has been really focused on maintaining American leadership in AI and making sure that we win the AI race against China. And that means clearing away the barriers to innovation, whether that's data center and energy permitting, whether that's just making sure that we can make the investments with confidence that we need in this infrastructure.

6:53And so we've had that advantage. And that's been a big support for us as we've made these investments.

6:59Andrew Ross Sorkin:Does it create problems, though, when he says things that irritate European leaders to the point where things have gotten pretty tense? because you have a lot of business here too. And I thought for a while that the administration might be helping with some of those things to try and tamp back some of the over-regulatory reach from the EU. Is that not the case? Yeah, they've been a huge ally in pushing back on some of the discriminatory regulation that we've seen come out of Europe. And that's been very helpful to us and other American companies. You know, there've been lots of discussions about tariffs over the last year.

7:33So far, we've been able to manage and ensure that we can continue to grow our business and offer consumers and small businesses throughout Europe the advantages our platforms offer. And I'm optimistic that we'll be able to continue going forward.

7:48Andrew Ross Sorkin:Let me ask you a question. If you think about it like this, I would say Facebook in particular, or Meta, was always considered or tried to be, and I think a lot of companies tried to be, quote, neutral companies, globally neutral, not necessarily even thinking of themselves as American companies versus something else. They were global companies. They'd come here and they'd be global companies. And now there's such an emphasis on national champions. There's such an emphasis, at least in the United States, but I would say because maybe of what's happening in the U.S., then national champions elsewhere.

8:15Andrew Ross Sorkin:And therefore, you see a splintering of all of it. How does Meta, which is a hopefully global company, I imagine for your purposes, work through that? Well, we're an American company that serves the world. And we're an American company that's investing massively in AI and AI infrastructure. And we're aligned with the administration in the U.S. that it's very important that we win this battle against China. It's the most critical battle that we'll have over the coming years for both our national and economic security. But that's a battle that not only the U.S., but all of the Western democracies have a stake in.

8:48So we think it's really important that we progress on this together with our friends and allies around the world, because this race is too important not to win. But you see us splintering?

8:56Andrew Ross Sorkin:We just had Ray Dalio on the broadcast, and he made the argument that basically the whole globe is effectively coming undone? Well, so far, we're not really seeing that on the technology front. Obviously, we've got a very serious competitor in China. We need to make sure that we invest the resources, that we clear away the regulatory burdens. That's why it's so important that President Trump has pushed to eliminate discriminatory burdens on AI development and other technology in Europe. We need to make sure that we're aligned and we're harmonized in the way that we approach this, because this is a battle we have to win.

9:28Andrew Ross Sorkin:Joel, I want to thank you for coming in. Thanks for having me. I'm betting on Joel. Thanks, Joe. We didn't even talk about Dina Powell. We can also bet on Dina, too. It's the end of the world. How many times can the world end? Once. Oh, only once, right? So we got that going for us. That's right. Very excited about Dina joining. Thank you very much, Joel.

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11:21It's smart to always have a few financial goals and a really smart one you can set. Earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can. Get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card.

11:51Thank you for listening to this special Squawk Pod reports from Davos. You can catch so many other iconic interviews from the World Economic Forum if you follow Squawk Pod wherever you're listening. An interview with President Trump, a conversation with Andy Jassy, even David Beckham. All those episodes await you. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Usually from New York and once a year from the Alps. Squawk Pod is produced by me, Cameron Costa, and Zach Valisi. Julie Trass is our editor. Have a great day.

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