FBI: Ex-OpenAI engineer accused of bugging meeting rooms kept "Saudi Gov Docs" folder
Ars Technica AI · rss · 2026-10-20
Per Ars Technica, a US court granted the government's request to keep former OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Abdulrahman Alfozan detained while prosecutors argue he spied on the frontier lab, allegedly for personal gain or for Saudi Arabia.
- Prosecutors say he bugged a top-secret OpenAI conference room to steal its secrets.
- The FBI found he had accessed an iPhone folder called "Saudi Gov Docs" shortly before arrest, which allegedly stored photos of a second listening device planted in the offices.
- He was reportedly chatting with a member of the Saudi royal family on WhatsApp while pursuing a permanent move back to Saudi Arabia during the kingdom's biggest AI push yet.
- US attorney Craig Missakian made the detention argument in a Sunday court filing.
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