Former OpenAI worker accused of bugging conference room planned travel to Saudi Arabia: Prosecutors

A former OpenAI employee accused of bugging the company’s offices was planning to leave the U.S. for Saudi Arabia when he was arrested earlier this month, according to federal prosecutors.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national who worked as an engineer at OpenAI, was arrested in early October for allegedly hiding a recording device in the AI firm’s San Francisco offices.

In a court filing Sunday, prosecutors argued Alfozan should be detained pending trial, suggesting he “has little incentive to remain in the United States to see this case through.”

They underscored the former OpenAI engineer has “considerable resources and ties to Saudi Arabia” and “was mere days away from leaving the United States for Saudi Arabia when he was arrested.”

Alfozan initially planned to fly to Riyadh with his wife and son on a one-way plane ticket on Oct. 12. After he was arrested on Oct. 9, his wife and son left the country the next day on a one-way plane ticket to Doha, Qatar, booked and paid for by a Saudi military official, according to the filing.

“The day before she left the United States, the defendant’s wife told the FBI agents who interviewed her that her U.S. visa was expiring and that she and her son were permanently moving back to Saudi Arabia—and that her husband, the defendant, eventually intended to do the same,” prosecutors said.

He was also in “frequent communication” with a member of the Saudi royal family, who was trying to recruit him to work on a Saudi AI initiative, and had applied to a program based in Riyadh, according to the filing.

However, Alfozan’s lawyers argued for pretrial release in a filing Friday, noting “his entire adult life” is in the U.S. and he was “weeks away” from an interview for his citizenship application.

His upcoming flight to Saudi Arabia was booked several weeks before the recording device was found and Alfozan was arrested, they added.

“If his intention was to flee, he would have done so at that time,” his lawyers wrote. “The October 12 departure date was fixed by federal immigration rules: it is the last day of the sixty-day grace period his wife was permitted to remain in the United States after her post-completion work authorization ended.”

They also suggested the one-way nature of Alfozan’s ticket was not abnormal, as he typically purchased one-way tickets and booked his return later.

A recording device was discovered in an executive conference room at OpenAI’s offices in late September, where it was plugged into a USB port on the back of a television and covered in toilet paper.

Alfozan was arrested shortly after, with prosecutors pointing to video surveillance footage showing him near the conference room in the days before the device was found and appearing to peer behind the television where it was placed about a week later.

Another recording device was found in his bag, while other similar electronic components were found at his home, prosecutors said. A chatbot used by his wife also showed inquiries about continuous audio recording, live listening and speech-triggered recording.