Saudi Engineer Pleads Not Guilty to Planting a Listening Device at OpenAI Headquarters

Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national who worked at OpenAI, denied the charge against him during a short hearing in a San Francisco federal court on Friday. CNBC report that Prosecutors accuse him of hiding a recording device inside a television in an executive conference room at the company’s offices on Sept. 28. He has been held without bail since his arrest in early October and was returned to jail after the hearing. A grand jury indicted him on Oct. 27 on one count of intercepting oral communications, which carries up to five years in prison.

Who Is Abdulrahman Alfozan

Role at OpenAI and Saudi Venture Ties

Alfozan’s profile on the website of Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm where he is a venture partner, says he leads engineering at OpenAI with a focus on AI agents and the company’s data platform. A member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, is also a venture partner at the same firm. His lawyer declined to comment, and Magistrate Judge Peter Kang set the next court date for Nov. 17.

AI Secrets and US Policy Concerns

The case lands as American firms race to build AI agents and worry about the theft of their technology. In June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making it US policy to guard American intellectual property from theft by adversaries. Trump has kept close ties with Saudi Arabia, though he has also limited visas for highly skilled foreign workers in his second term. OpenAI also held talks earlier this year with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund about a possible investment.