Alfozan in contact with Saudi royal before arrest

The Saudi national charged with planting a recording device in a sensitive OpenAI executive conference room in San Francisco was “in frequent communications via WhatsApp with a member of the Saudi Royal Family” throughout 2025 and 2026, prosecutors revealed in a bombshell court filing Sunday.

The defendant, Abdulrahman Alfozan, communicated with the Saudi royal as recently as Oct. 5 — four days before he was arrested, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco said in the filing, which requests that he be detained without bail.

Prosecutors did not identify the Saudi royal, or say in the filing how Alfozan, who then was working as an engineer at OpenAI, knew that person.

“Among other things, the individual [the royal family member] told the defendant [Alfozan] that an artificial intelligence initiative was being launched in Saudi Arabia and wanted the defendant to join it,” prosecutors wrote in their filing.

“In May 2026, the individual told the defendant, ‘Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!’ to which the defendant responded ‘100,’ indicating he agreed,” prosecutors wrote.

“The individual repeatedly tried to recruit the defendant and asked when he planned to leave OpenAI,” prosecutors wrote. ” At the time, the defendant said he wouldn’t leave until his stock vested.”

The filing does not say that the Saudi royal directed Alfozan to install a recording device at OpenAI or steal information from that AI giant.

Alfozan, who lives near the San Francisco airport, is a venture partner at Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm. Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, joined the firm as a venture partner in 2025. In their filing Sunday, prosecutors did not mention that prince by name, or say that the unidentified royal who communicated with Alfozan had ties to Raed.

Prosecutors in the same filing said that the Saudi government and then, shortly afterward, a member of the Saudi military, booked separate flights for Alfozan’s wife, Lujain Alassaf, and their three-month-old baby son to fly out of the United States after his Oct. 9 arrest upended plans for the three of them to fly as a family to Saudi Arabia on Oct. 12.

The wife and son flew from San Francisco to Doha, Qatar, on Oct. 10 on a business-class flight paid for by the unidentified member of the Saudi military, the filing said.

The filing asks that a judge order Alfozan, 35, detained without bail when he appears in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday morning.

Alfozan has been in jail since his arrest on a charge of using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications.  He faces a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison if convicted. OpenAI fired him after his…