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The Saudi OpenAI employee accused of wiretapping the tech company’s offices should continue to be detained in the United States because of his “substantial support of a foreign government,” prosecutors said Monday.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national, was arrested by the FBI after the maker of ChatGPT found a recording device wrapped in toilet paper in one of its meeting rooms. He was fired by OpenAI following the incident.
In 2025 and 2026, the San Francisco U.S. attorney’s office said, Alfozan — whose salary at OpenAI was $385,000 a year plus $2.2 million in equity — exchanged “frequent” WhatsApp messages with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family.
These messages included attempts by the royal to recruit Alfozan into an AI initiative launched in the Kingdom.
According to the court filing, the royal told the computer engineer in May: “‘Saudi Arabia needs you more than (sic) the United States!’ ” to which the defendant replied “100”, indicating that he agreed.” Alfozan “stated that he would not leave (OpenAI) until his shares vest,” the document adds.
The most recent WhatsApp message between the two men was dated Oct. 5, according to the filing, four days before Alfozan’s arrest.
Urging that the employee be detained until trial, the U.S. attorney’s office wrote that his “vast resources” included “what appears to be considerable support from a foreign government that has (i) no extradition treaty with the United States; (ii) unlimited resources; and (iii) the ability to provide extraordinary travel assistance.”
Alfozan’s case has fueled long-standing concerns in Silicon Valley that major AI groups are targets of industrial espionage by foreign countries also seeking to gain an advantage in the global AI race.
On October 10, the day after Alfozan’s arrest, his wife and son flew from San Francisco to Qatar “with a one-way business class ticket booked and paid for by a Saudi military official,” the filing adds.
William Pernik, Alfozan’s attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He told the FT last week that the allegations against Alfozan “seem totally irrelevant to him” and vowed to “relentlessly investigate” the government’s evidence against his client.
Prosecutors also gave additional details about the “extensive efforts” Alfozan went to in his alleged efforts to wiretap OpenAI headquarters.
They said he used his wife’s ChatGPT account to research how to create and encrypt a recording device, and that he investigated meeting rooms typically used by company executives and “external partners” with an OpenAI productivity agent.
The conference room in which the device was found is often used for meetings with internal executives and government officials, including “discussions of highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information,” posing potential national security risks, the filing said.
“Whether the defendant intended to record OpenAI meetings to enrich himself by improving his own business prospects, or… assist a foreign government, or both, his conduct is criminal and presents a danger to innovation in Silicon Valley and a concern for United States national security,” prosecutors said.
Additional reporting by Cristina Criddle in San Francisco
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