Court detains former OpenAI engineer in alleged Saudi spying case

Court orders detention

A federal court on Monday granted the US request to keep Abdulrahman Alfozan detained while prosecutors accuse the former OpenAI engineer of spying. US attorney Craig Missakian argued that Alfozan, a Saudi national and US permanent legal resident, is a flight risk backed by Saudi Arabia.

Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse agreed at a hearing that Alfozan should remain detained while he prepares his defense, Business Insider reported.

Alleged recording scheme

According to the government's court filing, OpenAI hired Alfozan as an engineer in or around July 2025 with an annual base salary of $325,000 and a new hire equity grant of $2,200,000 in profit participation units. The filing said his alleged scheming began in the months after his hiring.

About two weeks before a planned flight, OpenAI found a recording device hidden in a conference room. The filing said the device was there for at least multiple days and was in place during a top secret meeting with US government officials. The complaint alleged that Alfozan used an OpenAI productivity agent to research which conference rooms might be best exploited, and that logs suggested he used his wife's ChatGPT account to research modifying covert recorders to auto record on detecting speech and allow remote access.

After his arrest, Alfozan refused to speak to the FBI and asked for an attorney. His wife confirmed she had seen her ChatGPT account open on his laptop when asked about her plan to move back to Saudi Arabia.

Flight risk and Saudi ties

The FBI arrested Alfozan days before he could board a plane. The government said he had booked a one way ticket for himself, his wife and their baby to Riyadh, paid for by the Saudi government. After his arrest, his wife and son booked a sooner flight and left the US. The filing said a member of the Saudi military booked and paid for another one way ticket for them, this time business class to Doha, Qatar.

Prosecutors said Alfozan has ample resources after a decade of high tech work in the Bay Area, and at least two bank accounts in Saudi Arabia. They pointed to the case of former Twitter employees charged with spying for the Saudi government, including Ali Alzabarah, whose charges remain pending after a Saudi foreign official helped coordinate a next day flight.

The FBI said Alfozan's iPhone showed WhatsApp logs in which a member of the Saudi Royal Family seemed to be recruiting him. The logs date to 2025, the year he started at OpenAI, and continued to October 5. They included Alfozan responding "100" to a message saying "Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!" On October 4, he accessed a folder called "Saudi Gov Docs." The filing did not disclose what was in the folder, but said logs showed he then used OpenAI's productivity agent to ask who at OpenAI could attend a high level informal meeting with Saudi ministers, requesting 10 people and reasons.

Alfozan faces a maximum sentence of five years for illegally recording OpenAI meetings, but the government said more serious charges may follow as evidence mounts. Prosecutors argued his conduct is criminal whether he acted to enrich himself, to aid a foreign government, or both, and presents a danger to innovation in Silicon Valley and US national security.

Sources: Ars Technica · Wired