Filing says Alfozan told royal he would not leave until his stock vested
SAN FRANCISCO—Before his arrest, former OpenAI product team member Abdulrahman Alfozan had been in frequent WhatsApp contact with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family about joining an artificial-intelligence initiative being launched in Saudi Arabia, federal prosecutors alleged in a court filing Monday. The filing, which argues that Alfozan should be kept in custody because he is a flight risk, was filed ahead of his scheduled Monday federal court appearance in San Francisco.
According to the filing, the royal family member told Alfozan that an artificial-intelligence initiative was being launched in Saudi Arabia and that he wanted Alfozan to join it. “Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!” the Saudi royal family member allegedly wrote. Alfozan replied, “100.” Prosecutors alleged the Saudi royal repeatedly tried to recruit Alfozan, but at the time Alfozan said he would not leave until his stock vested. It is unclear whether Alfozan’s equity had vested before he was fired on the day of his arrest.
Throughout 2025 and 2026, Alfozan was in frequent WhatsApp communication with the unnamed Saudi royal family member, including as recently as October 2026, prosecutors said.
Alfozan’s lawyer said he planned to address the new filing in court. Representatives from the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately have a comment.
Alfozan, 35, is accused of wrapping a thumb-sized circuit board and microphone in toilet paper and inserting the device behind a wall-mounted TV inside the conference room around Sept. 28, shortly before he was set to leave the country. OpenAI told prosecutors he was scheduled for two months of paternity leave beginning sometime in October, the filing said.
Prosecutors said Alfozan had booked one-way plane tickets from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia via Istanbul for himself, his wife and their three-month-old son on Oct. 12. Three days before he was scheduled to leave in October, he was arrested and charged with trying to record conversations within OpenAI’s offices. He was fired the same day.
Alfozan’s wife and son left the United States shortly after his arrest, prosecutors said. Their original one-way tickets were initially paid for by the Saudi government, but that flight was canceled, the filing said. They were then rebooked on another one-way flight to Qatar, this time in business class, by a member of the Saudi military. The Saudi military official who booked the tickets was Alfozan’s wife’s brother, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Alfozan’s wife told Federal Bureau of Investigation agents the day she left that her visa was expiring and that she and her son were permanently moving back to Saudi Arabia, prosecutors said. She allegedly told prosecutors that Alfozan had planned to come back to the U.S. but eventually move permanently as well.
In the days around the time when Alfozan allegedly inserted the device, OpenAI executives had met with government officials in the same conference room, prosecutors said. “Defendant’s conduct could pose a danger to national security in the United States,” they wrote.
Alfozan had been an employee on OpenAI’s product team since July 2025, the filing said. His base salary when he joined OpenAI was $325,000, with a new-hire equity grant of $2.2 million in profit-participation units. His base salary was later increased to $385,000.