He linked Saudi Arabia to Silicon Valley. Then OpenAI found a bug wrapped in toilet paper

Abdulrahman Alfozan was scheduled to speak at an event at Stanford University last Friday, with the computer engineer believed to be a rare Saudi national also working at OpenAI.

Twenty minutes before the conference, organizers received a call from a friend who told them he wouldn’t come, according to a person who knows Alfozan.

On Tuesday it emerged the 35-year-old had been arrested by the FBI, after the maker of ChatGPT found a cheap Chinese-made recording device wrapped in toilet paper and inserted into the back of a television in a conference room.

OpenAI said it fired Alfozan after the discovery, while the US Department of Justice released an image appearing to show him peeking from behind the screen where the bug was hidden. Alfozan did not respond to requests for comment.

His dismissal from OpenAI represents a dramatic fall from grace for Alfozan, who has cited Elon Musk as a role model and had previously been hailed in local media as a technology pioneer who rubbed shoulders with senior Saudi officials.

Such connections have fueled long-standing concerns in Silicon Valley that AI groups are a prime target for industrial espionage by foreign countries also seeking an advantage in the global AI race.

When Gulf contacts heard the news of Alfozan’s arrest, those who knew him as both a brilliant engineer and the father of a young daughter felt a deep sense of shock.

He was invariably described as polite and gentle by those who dealt with him. “He can’t hurt a fly,” one said. “Very distant person. His mind always seemed to be elsewhere.”

As recently as last month, Alfozan was a constant presence in the overlapping circles between Silicon Valley and Saudi Arabia. The country’s Public Investment Fund is a leading investor in US technology start-ups and had previously led negotiations to finance OpenAI.

When Saudi tech influencers visited San Francisco for Apple’s iPhone 18 launch in September, it was Alfozan who welcomed them to the OpenAI offices and showed them around.

“The only Saudi employee at OpenAI!” said tech influencer Faisal al-Saif on Snapchat. “We are very proud of you!” » he added, before asking for advice from young people who wish to specialize in AI.

When influential Saudi IT Minister Abdullah al-Swaha visited the city that same week for a kingdom-backed conference, Alfozan hosted a panel discussion at the event.

He is also listed as a venture capital partner at Riyadh-based Raed Ventures, which has invested in a number of start-ups in the Middle East. In a statement last year announcing Alfozan’s hiring, founding partner Omar Almajdouie said Alfozan had a “deep understanding” of the startup ecosystem.

William Pernik, Alfozan’s attorney, said he “came to this country years ago as a young person with a dream. He spent years studying, working and contributing to an American technology sector that dominates the world, a sector built largely by immigrants like him.”

“These allegations strike him as completely unusual, and we will relentlessly investigate all evidence produced by the government in this case to understand what really happened, who was responsible, and possible reasons.”

Born in the ultraconservative central region of Qassim, Alfozan grew up in Dammam, in the kingdom’s oil-rich eastern province. His fascination with technology began during computer classes in college. Seeing his passion, his parents bought him a computer and enrolled him in a special government-supported program for gifted children to develop skills in math, physics and engineering.

“He would read the encyclopedia cover to cover,” his father said in a documentary about Alfozan aired on Saudi television, while describing taking the boy to book fairs.

After completing high school, Alfozan received a full scholarship from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the kingdom’s premier research university and first coeducational university, to study computer science and electrical engineering in the United States.

He then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and interned at numerous start-ups. After graduating in 2016, he accepted an offer from Facebook and moved to California.

“I chose Facebook for several reasons: first, they have a scientific team for data science and analysis,” he said in a government-produced video released by the Media Ministry during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the United States in April 2018, as an example of young Saudi talents flourishing in Silicon Valley.

Alfozan said his plan was to return home by 2020 to contribute to the development of the local economy and work in Saudi start-ups.

He ended up staying in San Francisco, and in May of that year a project he co-developed won the $50,000 first prize at a local Saudi hackathon. When he appeared in the video where the winners were announced, he had a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge as his Zoom background.

“There were only four or five Saudis when I arrived in the valley in 2015 or 2016, now there are more than 50,” he said in another video published by the Saudi channel Al Arabiya.

One of his Saudi classmates at MIT told state television in 2023 that Alfozan was “very generous, always helpful.” Another Saudi contact described how, when he applied for a job at Facebook, Alfozan helped recommend him.

After several years at Facebook, he helped create a logistics start-up, Nash, before joining OpenAI last year. He has been a permanent legal resident of the United States since 2020.

Although he visits Saudi Arabia several times a year, after more than a decade living in the United States, Alfozan felt left out of developments in the kingdom, which was rapidly transforming under Prince Mohammed’s ambitious Vision 2030 program.

Three years ago, he developed an app that explored Google search and Twitter hashtag trends in the country and displayed them on a large screen in his office. “Every time I step in front of the screen, I know what people are talking about in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

The FBI has not given a motive for the alleged espionage, but if it turns out to be state-linked, it will be the second high-profile case of this nature after two Saudi citizens were implicated in a case within Twitter — since renamed X — infiltrating the company and sharing user data on dissidents and critics with Saudi authorities.

Ali Alzabarah and Ahmed Aljbreen were both indicted by the FBI and fled to Saudi Arabia before being arrested. The latter remains active in the Saudi entrepreneurial scene, often posting on Snapchat about welcoming young business leaders and posts about local start-ups.

Saudi tech workers said the latest incident would seriously hurt their ability to find employment with America’s biggest companies or attract venture capital investment for their start-ups, given Alfozan’s importance as a middleman between the two tech scenes.

He told the state news agency last year: “We are very keen to connect those interested in technology in Saudi Arabia with their peers in Silicon Valley. »

Additional reporting by Ella Lee in Washington, DC