In September 2013, Chris Hughes, one of the earliest employees at Facebook who had played an important role in the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign, explained to Erin Griffith in an interview the reasons for his not being involved with FWD.us despite being close to the founders. He said, "They’ve taken a stance on all kinds of things, from [the Keystone XL pipeline] to other issues, which are not reflective of my own."