# The OpenAI Engineer, the “Saudi Gov Docs” Folder and the One-Way Tickets to Riyadh > Source: > Published: 2026-10-19 20:21:53+00:00 On Monday, 19 October, Abdulrahman Alfozan sat in orange prison clothing through an hour-long hearing in a federal courtroom in San Francisco and did not say a word. He is 35, a Saudi national, a permanent resident of the United States and, until his arrest, an engineer at OpenAI. When the hearing ended, Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse ruled that he would stay in custody until trial. [CBS News reported](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-openai-engineer-recording-device-saudi-royal-family/) that the judge saw a “significant” risk Alfozan would not come back to court. The government had made its case the day before, in a filing signed by US Attorney Craig Missakian and [reported by Ashley Belanger of *Ars Technica*](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/accused-openai-spy-had-folder-called-saudi-gov-docs-fbi-says/). Read closely, the filing tells of a man caught between two employers: a company paying him handsomely in California, and a kingdom that, according to prosecutors, kept asking him to come home. ## The salary and the summons He came to the United States in 2009 and took technical degrees from MIT and UC Berkeley. After more than ten years in Silicon Valley, OpenAI hired him in or around July 2025, the filing says, with an annual base salary of $325,000 and “a new hire equity grant of $2,200,000 in profit participation units.” In the same year, the government alleges, WhatsApp messages with “a member of the Saudi Royal Family” began arriving on his phone, and they kept coming until 5 October. In one of them he was told: “Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!” He answered: “100.” CBS reported that, according to the filings, he said he would not leave until his OpenAI stock had vested, stock the government valued at around $2 million. So the call of the homeland came with one condition attached: the vesting schedule. ## The room According to the [Justice Department’s complaint announcement](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/saudi-national-arrested-installing-surreptitious-audio-recording-device-openai), on or around 30 September OpenAI staff found a recording device wrapped in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room. It had been installed around 28 September. Prosecutors now say it stayed there “at least multiple days”, and that the room was not an ordinary one: “In the days surrounding the time period that the device was installed, OpenAI executives met with government officials in that very room.” Their next line reads: “Defendant’s conduct could pose a danger to the national security of the United States.” The tools he is accused of using came from his own employer. Prosecutors allege he asked an OpenAI productivity agent which conference rooms would serve his purpose, and that logs show his wife’s personal ChatGPT account being used to research how to make his devices start recording when they detected speech and how to control them remotely. After his arrest he refused to speak to the FBI and asked for his lawyer. His wife, the filing says, told agents she had seen her ChatGPT account open on his laptop. It was a strange detail when OpenAI first [credited its own models with catching him](https://rews.cc/a/openai-engineer-charged-with-bugging-an-executive-room-alleg-160774), and it is no less strange now. A search of his home turned up devices like the one in the conference room. Photos on his iPhone showed, the filing says, “at least one additional concealed recording device” and the input and output panels of televisions and other electronics around OpenAI’s buildings, including “another conference room where sensitive meetings frequently occurred.” OpenAI has said the first device had “advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring,” and that it had no indication he had taken model weights, source code or customer data, [The Hacker News reported](https://thehackernews.com/2026/10/openai-employee-arrested-for-allegedly.html). ## The folder On 4 October, according to the FBI, he opened a folder on his iPhone called “Saudi Gov Docs.” The government has not said what was in it. It did describe what he did next. He asked OpenAI’s productivity agent: “who from OpenAI could be suitable to attend a high level informal meeting with ministers in Saudi Arabia? List 10 people and why each. Ideally high levels.” Prosecutors place all this against Saudi Arabia’s drive into artificial intelligence under its Vision 2030 programme, a drive OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, applauded at a summit alongside Donald Trump. The same governments that celebrate one another on stage watch each other closely in conference rooms. ## The tickets OpenAI was about to give him parental leave. His wife’s student visa had run out, and the filing says he meant to use his two months off to move her and their baby back to Saudi Arabia for good. He had a one-way ticket to Riyadh for the three of them, prosecutors say, “paid for by the Saudi government.” The FBI arrested him on 9 October, days before the flight. His wife and son left the country without him. Prosecutors say “a member of the Saudi military booked and paid for yet another one-way ticket for the defendant’s wife and son, this one business class to Doha, Qatar.” He has at least two bank accounts in Saudi Arabia. The government also cited the case of Ali Alzabarah, a former Twitter employee accused of spying for Riyadh, who left on a next-day flight that “a Saudi foreign official” helped arrange and who still faces charges. Although FBI agents seized the defendant’s Saudi passport when they arrested him, there is nothing to stop the defendant, if he is released, from obtaining any necessary travel documents and fleeing the United States—with or without the help of a foreign government that has previously assisted its citizens depart the United States under similar circumstances. ## The bond His lawyer, William Pernik, told the court his client was “weeks away from achieving every immigrant’s dream”: American citizenship. He proposed home detention at the family’s house in Millbrae, a GPS ankle monitor and the surrender of his passport. According to [AFP’s account of the hearing](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20261019-us-judge-orders-saudi-engineer-held-in-openai-case) and CBS, the defence also submitted a letter from the Saudi consulate offering to pay the bond. The judge asked whether the Saudi government would simply pay Alfozan back if he fled and lost it. The consulate’s offer was meant to show he had support. It ended up showing how much. The only charge so far is intercepting oral communications. It carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The complaint does not accuse him of espionage, but prosecutors wrote that more serious charges may follow. In their view, his motive hardly matters: “Whether the defendant wanted to record OpenAI meetings to enrich himself by enhancing his own business prospects, or to provide aid [to] a foreign government, or both, his conduct is criminal.” The filing’s last argument concerns a family already split by an ocean. “His wife and son are now in Saudi Arabia and have no plans to return,” it says. “He has the connections needed not only to flee, but to build a new life in Saudi Arabia.” For now he is held in California, and they are in Saudi Arabia.