The case of a former OpenAI engineer who, according to U.S. authorities, bugged the company’s leadership is leading to Saudi Arabia. Federal prosecutors revealed in a new court filing that 35-year-old Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan had been corresponding for months with a member of the Saudi royal family. He also searched a company folder named Saudi Gov Docs and was preparing to move permanently to Riyadh. The Saudi government then directly helped his wife and their three-month-old son flee the United States. A San Francisco court ruled on Monday that Alfozan will remain in custody until trial.
According to the indictment, Alfozan hid a small recording device behind a television in a conference room at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters in late September. The company’s leadership meets in this room, which is also visited by government officials and business partners. OpenAI discovered the device after about two days, identified the perpetrator, and turned the case over to the FBI. Agents arrested the engineer on October 9, and the company promptly fired him. He faces up to five years in prison.
“Saudi Arabia needs you more than the U.S.”
New information reveals whom Alfozan had been communicating with in recent months. During 2025 and 2026, he regularly exchanged messages via WhatsApp with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family. He last spoke with him on October 5, four days before his arrest.
According to investigators, this person repeatedly urged him to join a new artificial intelligence project being launched by Saudi Arabia. In May, he wrote that Saudi Arabia needed him more than the U.S. Alfozan replied with the number one hundred, which investigators interpret as clear agreement. When the prince asked when he would leave OpenAI, he replied that he would wait until his company shares vested so that he could actually own them. In addition, according to the indictment, he enrolled in the 2030 Leaders program organized by the foundation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
According to investigators, Alfozan was particularly interested in how OpenAI cooperates with Saudi Arabia. On October 4, he opened a company folder named Saudi Gov Docs. From July through September, he used an internal AI-powered work tool to ask about negotiations with the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. He searched for information about planned trips by OpenAI employees to the kingdom, an upcoming visit by ministry representatives to OpenAI, and a meeting labeled HUMAIN x MCIT @OpenAI.
According to prosecutors, he had previously used the same tool to determine which conference rooms were used by the leadership and where they met with outsiders. He asked ChatGPT, through his wife’s account, for instructions on how to build a bug that would continuously record audio and store it in encrypted form on a memory card.
Photos of other conference rooms and a third device
A search of his home and an examination of his phone uncovered further evidence. Investigators found electronic components at the engineer’s home similar to those used to assemble the device in the conference room. They also discovered a second device that OpenAI security had found in his bag, which he had left near the printers.
His iPhone contained photos from late September showing another hidden voice recorder as well as television connectors in various OpenAI buildings. These included a second conference room where sensitive discussions took place. Prosecutors view this as evidence that he was scouting additional locations for bugs. A deleted note containing links to equipment made by Seeed Studio was also found on the phone. Products from the same brand were discovered both in OpenAI’s offices and at his home.
According to prosecutors, everything indicates that Alfozan intended to take the equipment to Saudi Arabia. At the same time, they are not claiming that the surveillance was directed by the Saudi government, and they have not yet determined who was supposed to receive the recordings. Investigators want to establish whether the engineer was recording meetings for his own business interests, at the request of a foreign government, or for both reasons. The case could lead to additional serious charges.
Saudi government arranged family’s departure
The court was most persuaded by the events following the arrest. Alfozan had purchased a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Riyadh for October 12, and he was about to begin two months of parental leave from OpenAI. The day before the planned departure, his wife told FBI agents that her U.S. visa was expiring and that she and their son were returning home permanently.
According to prosecutors, their first one-way flight was booked and paid for by the Saudi government. A Saudi military official subsequently bought them business-class tickets to Qatar. The mother and her three-month-old child flew out of San Francisco approximately 36 hours after her husband was detained.
For prosecutors, this is evidence that Alfozan could receive substantial assistance from Saudi Arabia if he attempted to flee. They also noted that he has significant financial resources. He earned around $385,000 a year at OpenAI and also received shares worth more than $2 million. According to them, he is backed by a foreign government with virtually unlimited resources that, moreover, has no extradition treaty with the United States.
There has already been a similar case
Prosecutors reminded the court of a similar case from 2015. At the time, Twitter confronted its employee Ali Alzabarah for accessing user data. According to U.S. authorities, he subsequently called a Saudi official and the consul general in Los Angeles. They arranged a flight for him, and the very next day he was on his way to Saudi Arabia. He later began working for the Misk Foundation, which is linked to the crown prince. The charges against him remain pending to this day, but he never returned to the United States.
An anonymous former CIA officer told CNBC that if a state was indeed behind the bugging, it would mean that even Saudi Arabia considers economic espionage against a close ally advantageous. Neither the Saudi embassy nor Alfozan’s attorney has yet commented on the new information.
Sources: bbc.com, reuters.com, foxnews.com and cnbc.com
