US prosecutors ask to hold an OpenAI employee without bail in the bugging case, citing messages with a Saudi prince
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
The court will still decide whether to keep the suspect in custody; the prosecution links the case to contacts in Saudi Arabia, and the defense disputes this.
According to the prosecution's materials, 35-year-old Saudi citizen Abdulrahman Alfozan, arrested on October 9, installed a recording device in OpenAI's executive conference room in San Francisco on September 28. Prosecutors say that in 2025-2026 he messaged frequently on WhatsApp with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family, who invited him to join a Saudi SI initiative and asked when he would leave OpenAI; in one message he wrote: "Saudi needs you more than the U.S.!" According to the prosecution, after the arrest a Saudi military member bought tickets to Doha for the defendant's family. Lawyer William Pernik said the trip had been planned for family and immigration reasons and that nationality does not mean a flight risk. No espionage or foreign-agent charges have been filed; the maximum sentence is five years.
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