An ex-OpenAI engineer accused of planting a recording device in a company conference room allegedly received substantial support from the Saudi government, US prosecutors have told a federal court.
Prosecutors say Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, was in frequent contact with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family. They also allege that a Saudi military official paid for a one-way flight for Alfozan’s wife and young son to return to Saudi Arabia after his arrest.
The claims were made in a detention memo arguing that Alfozan should remain in US custody until trial because he poses a flight risk. The Saudi national, who is a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was due to appear in federal court in San Francisco on Monday.
Alfozan has been charged with using an electronic device to intercept oral communications. Prosecutors allege that he connected a recording device to the back of a television in an executive conference room at one of OpenAI’s San Francisco buildings.
Meetings involving government officials took place in the room around the time the device was installed, prosecutors said. They added that the investigation remained active and that further charges could follow.
Prosecutors allege Saudi links
In their filing, prosecutors said Alfozan had created customised, encrypted devices to secretly record sensitive meetings involving OpenAI executives, senior company personnel, business counterparts and government officials.
They also allege that a member of the Saudi royal family tried to recruit him for an artificial intelligence role in Saudi Arabia. One message cited in the filing said: “Saudi needs you more then the US!” Alfozan replied: “100”.
Before his arrest, Alfozan had been due to travel to Riyadh during a planned two-month period of parental leave. Prosecutors said his wife told investigators that she and their son intended to move permanently to Saudi Arabia, with Alfozan eventually planning to join them.
His lawyer, William Pernik, previously sought his release under conditions including location monitoring and the surrender of his passport. Pernik said Alfozan had lived in the United States for 15 years and had applied for citizenship.
The lawyer also said a planned trip to Saudi Arabia had been booked before Alfozan came under investigation and was for “family and immigration reasons”.
In an Arabic-language podcast interview last month, Alfozan said he visited Saudi Arabia three or four times a year and advised or mentored start-ups there. He also described meeting Mohammed bin Salman, then deputy crown prince, at a 2016 gathering with young Saudi technology workers in Silicon Valley.
Alfozan said the meeting encouraged him to gain experience at a leading technology company before returning those skills to Saudi Arabia. While working at Facebook, he and other Saudis in Silicon Valley formed a consultancy linking Saudi public- and private-sector organisations with expertise in big data, the internet of things and machine learning.
OpenAI said it discovered the device on September 30 and referred the matter to the FBI. The Saudi government’s media office and Alfozan’s lawyer had not immediately responded to requests for comment.
