Former OpenAI engineer and Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan/Image: Reuters
Alfozan was scheduled to fly from San Francisco to Riyadh on October 12. Prosecutors allege that his wife and three-month-old son left the United States on October 10 on business-class tickets purchased by a Saudi military official. Alfozan joined OpenAI in July 2025 and received an annual salary of $385,000, along with an equity grant worth $2.2 million, according to the filing.
Investigators also found photographs of other possible surveillance locations and searches related to meetings between OpenAI executives and Saudi government officials, according to the filing. Prosecutors alleged that Alfozan may have considered placing additional recording devices in the company’s offices and planned to retrieve equipment before leaving the firm. He had also been scheduled to take two months of parental leave from October. Prosecutors argued that his financial resources and overseas connections made him a flight risk. Alfozan is due back in court next month.
A judge denied his lawyers’ request to release him to home confinement at a detention hearing on Monday.