Ex-OpenAI engineer denied release as prosecutors cite Saudi ties

The BBC reports that US magistrate judge Alex Tse denied Abdulrahman Alfozan’s request for release on Monday, saying “there is a risk of non-appearance that is significant”. Prosecutors had argued that the former OpenAI engineer’s Saudi connections and help given to his family after his arrest made him a flight risk. The ruling concerns whether he should remain in custody before trial, not whether Saudi Arabia was involved in the alleged recording attempt. [3]

Alfozan, a Saudi national, was arrested on 9 October and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept conversations. Prosecutors allege that he placed a concealed recorder behind a television in an OpenAI executive meeting room in San Francisco around 28 September. OpenAI staff found it two days later. He has not been charged with acting for a foreign government, and the charge does not establish that any conversation was recorded. [4]

In a filing seeking his detention, prosecutors say Alfozan was in frequent WhatsApp contact during 2025 and 2026 with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family who repeatedly tried to recruit him for an AI initiative. They also say the Saudi government paid for a flight to Jeddah for his wife and son after his arrest, but that flight did not go ahead. A member of the Saudi military then paid for their one-way business-class tickets to Doha, on which they travelled on 10 October. [1]

Those contacts and payments are central to the prosecutors’ argument about flight risk. They do not establish who, if anyone, asked Alfozan to place the device. Prosecutors suggest either personal business advantage or assistance to a foreign government as possible purposes. They say meetings with government officials took place in the room around the period when the device was allegedly there, raising a possible national security concern. [1]

Alfozan’s lawyers dispute the flight-risk argument. They say he bought the family’s original tickets to Saudi Arabia on 13 September, before the alleged placement of the device, for family and immigration reasons. They cite his previous returns from trips abroad and a US citizenship interview scheduled for 6 November. In a filing made before the prosecutors detailed the Saudi contacts and payments, they also said the Saudi consulate had offered to cover any bail bond and promised not to issue him travel documents while he was on release.