A Saudi engineer charged with trying to bug confidential OpenAI meetings frequently sent WhatsApp messages to a Saudi royal who told him, “Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!” according to a stunning court filing.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, the 35-year-old Saudi national in federal custody, repeatedly messaged the unidentified Saudi royal in 2025 and 2026, including as recently as Oct. 5 – just four days before his arrest, federal prosecutors said in the Sunday filing.
The Saudi royal repeatedly tried to recruit the defendant to join an AI initiative being launched in Saudi Arabia, but Alfozan “said he wouldn’t leave [OpenAI] until his stock vested,” according to the filing.
“In May 2026, the individual told the defendant, ‘Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!’ to which the defendant responded ‘100,’ indicating he agreed,” prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors are requesting that Alfozan be detained without bail, arguing he is a “flight risk” because he has “ample resources … and what appears to be considerable support” from the Saudi government.
Alfozan – who was hired by OpenAI in July 2025 with a base engineering salary of $325,000, later upped to $385,000 – lives near the San Francisco airport and is a partner at Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm, according to federal prosecutors.
Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud, a Saudi royal, joined the firm as a partner in 2025.
The filing did not mention the prince by name or whether he has any ties to Alfozan. The filing also did not say whether the unnamed royal told Alfozan to install recording devices in OpenAI’s San Francisco conference rooms.
The Saudi government booked a flight to Saudi Arabia for Alfozan, his wife and their 3-month-old son, according to the filing.
After his arrest disrupted those plans, Alfozan’s wife, Lujain Alassaf, and their baby flew to Doha, Qatar, on Oct. 10 on a business-class flight paid for by a member of the Saudi military, prosecutors said.
“He has the connections needed not only to flee, but to build a new life in Saudi Arabia. The Court should order the defendant detained pending trial,” the feds wrote in the filing.
The defendant’s lawyer, William Pernik, asked in a separate filing that Alfozan be released with home detention and GPS monitoring “supported by the written undertaking of the Consulate General of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
He argued that Alfozan’s “nationality is not evidence of flight,” saying his planned travel to Saudi Arabia was for “family and immigration reasons” and that he had booked a one-way ticket because he had learned it was a good way to save on flights.
Alfozan faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and then three years of supervised release, if convicted.
A spokesperson for OpenAI pointed The Post to the company’s previous statement, which said there was no indication that Alfozan inappropriately accessed or exfiltrated model weights, source code or customer data.
“We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance,” OpenAI said in the statement. “Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.”
OpenAI fired Alfozan following his arrest, after a “surreptitious audio recording device” was found stuffed into the back of a TV in a conference room, wrapped in toilet paper in an apparent attempt to hide the device, according to the complaint.
Alfozan was caught in a surveillance photo peering behind the TV, wide-eyed with his mouth agape, days after security personnel discovered the device.
In the days around the device’s installation, “OpenAI executives met with government officials in that very room” – presenting a national security threat, prosecutors wrote.
Alfozan’s phone had a deleted note from September 2026 “with links to various recording devices, including devices made by Seeed Studio” – the same kind found in the conference room, according to the filing.
His iPhone also contained photographs showing “at least one additional concealed device as well as what appear to be the input/output panels on televisions and other electronic devices” around OpenAI buildings, the filing said.
His residence contained similar electronic devices, and another recording device was found in a bag that Alfozan left behind in a printer room, according to prosecutors.
Alfozan – a legal permanent US resident who had applied to become a naturalized citizen – was planning to take two months of parental leave after the birth of his son, but another note on his phone suggested that he planned to extend his “leave to full,” according to the filing.
His wife told FBI agents before her departure that her visa was expiring and she was moving permanently back to Saudi Arabia with her son “and that her husband, the defendant, eventually intended to do the same,” the filing said.
But Pernik, Alfozan’s lawyer, argued that this was normal behavior, saying Alfozan had spent roughly 15 years in the US, worked at several companies and regularly attended friends’ birthday parties and weddings – which is “not the profile of a person with one foot out the door.”
Credit: Source link
