Abdulrahman Alfozan

Alfozan enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2011, studied computer science and engineering, and according to his LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry profile received his undergraduate degree in 2016.⁠[1][2][3]

Before joining Meta, he interned at MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry, SAP in Berlin and Akamai, and worked as a systems engineer at Reach Labs, a wireless power startup that went through Y Combinator’s Summer 2015 batch. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has lived in California since 2015.⁠[4][5][3]

From 2017 to 2022, Alfozan was a senior systems engineer at Meta; RAED Ventures says he spent five years there working on machine learning and data platforms.⁠[4][6]

According to court documents, Alfozan has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States since September 2020.⁠[1][4]

From 2022 to August 2025, he was a founding engineer at Nash. Founded in 2021 and based in San Francisco, Nash went through Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 batch and describes itself as digital logistics infrastructure for commerce; RAED Ventures describes it as an a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry portfolio company.⁠[4][7][6]

On February 8, 2025, the Riyadh venture capital firm RAED Ventures announced that Alfozan had joined as a venture partner to identify investment opportunities and support startups as they grow; founding partner Omar Almajdouie said Alfozan’s understanding of the startup ecosystem and operating experience would help the firm support its founders. Two days earlier, the firm had announced that Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, had also joined as a venture partner.⁠[8][9][10]

According to OpenAI and the US Department of Justice, Alfozan worked as an engineer at OpenAI from July 2025; his personal LinkedIn profile gives September 2025 as his start date. His LinkedIn lists him as engineering lead on OpenAI’s AI agents platform, and RAED Ventures likewise says he focused on AI agents and the data platform.⁠[11][1][4][6]

According to his LinkedIn profile, he received a master’s degree in data science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2025.⁠[4][3]

In the Arabic career podcast “Identity Capital,” aired in September 2026, Alfozan said that he and other Saudi technology professionals in Silicon Valley had formed a group that advised Saudi organizations, including the kingdom’s social insurance agency; the consulting initiative aimed to connect Saudi public and private organizations with expertise in big data, the internet of things and machine learning.⁠[2][12]

He recalled meeting Mohammed bin Salman, then the deputy crown prince, during the prince’s 2016 visit, and said the prince had advised young Saudis in Silicon Valley to gain skills at leading companies and then bring that expertise home.⁠[2]

According to the federal criminal complaint, around September 30, 2026, OpenAI found a recording device wrapped in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port on the back of a television during a routine countermeasures sweep of an executive conference room in one of its San Francisco buildings; the company believes it was installed around September 28. Prosecutors say the device was a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense development board with a microphone and memory card; when OpenAI copied the card, none of the files could be recovered or decrypted, and it is not known whether the device captured any conversation.⁠[11][13][4]

Prosecutors allege that the room was typically used for internal leadership meetings and could be reserved only by executives and their assistants, and that Alfozan had no authorization to enter it; surveillance footage showed him near the room on several dates before the discovery, including for several hours on the afternoon of September 28. Prosecutors also say that between September 24 and 30, a ChatGPT account sharing identifiers with his own account was used to ask how to build, conceal and remotely access a recording device.⁠[13][4]

The complaint further alleges that on October 5, Alfozan entered the conference room and looked behind the television; the same day he left a bag in a printer area, where security staff found his wallet, identification and a second, similar recording device, which they removed. The next day he reported items from the bag as stolen but did not mention the device.⁠[11][4]

OpenAI said it used its own AI models to identify the device and its origin and referred the matter to the FBI, and gradually restricted his access from September 30; the company said it had no indication that he had improperly accessed or exfiltrated model weights, source code or customer data.⁠[4][14]

On October 9, 2026, the FBI arrested Alfozan, and OpenAI fired him the same day. Federal prosecutors charged him by criminal complaint with one count of using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical or other device to intercept oral communications, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(b), which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.⁠[11][4]

In an October 8 filing, prosecutors had said that one-way tickets had been booked for Alfozan to Saudi Arabia via Istanbul for October 12, arguing that he had the means and the incentive to flee.⁠[10][13]

On October 13, Alfozan made his initial appearance in federal court in San Francisco, and the Justice Department announced the case. Craig Missakian, US Attorney for the Northern District of California, said that “for us it is a matter of national security,” and FBI Director Kash Patel said protecting American AI innovation was a top counterintelligence priority. The case is prosecuted by the National Security, Cyber & Special Prosecutions Section of the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, with assistance from the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.⁠[11][15][4]

His lawyer, William Pernik, said they would contest the allegations, called them “wholly out of character” for his client, and said that where someone was born “is not evidence of anything.”⁠[10][16]

In a memorandum seeking his detention, prosecutors said an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family had repeatedly tried to recruit Alfozan to a new Saudi artificial intelligence initiative and in May had written “Saudi needs you more then the U.S.!”, to which Alfozan replied “100”; prosecutors also said a Saudi military official had paid for one-way tickets to leave the United States, and that he had applied to the Misk Foundation’s 2030 Leaders program, which would have required in-person participation in Riyadh. The filings do not say that the Saudi government directed the recording operation.⁠[17][18][12][19]

The defense said Alfozan had bought economy tickets to Riyadh on September 13 under his own name for family and immigration reasons, and that he had lived in the United States for 15 years and applied for citizenship, with a naturalization interview scheduled for November 6. It submitted 54 letters of support and proposed release on conditions including GPS monitoring, home detention, surrender of all passports and $1 million in assets, with the Saudi Consulate General in Los Angeles offering to back the full bond.⁠[17][12][20][18]

On October 19, Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse ordered Alfozan held without bail pending trial, finding a “significant” risk that he would not appear, and questioned the proposal for the Saudi consulate to back his bond. Pernik said the defense disagreed with the decision and would continue to fight for his release. His next court date was set for November 6, for a status conference on the preliminary hearing.⁠[18][21]

As of October 24, 2026, Alfozan faced only the single interception charge and had not been charged with theft of trade secrets, economic espionage or acting as a foreign agent, and there had been no verdict; the Justice Department noted that a complaint merely alleges that crimes have been committed and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. In detention filings, prosecutors said the investigation was ongoing and could result in additional serious charges.⁠[11][19][13][20]

Reportedly, the FBI was weighing an additional economic espionage charge, focusing on whether he intended to provide information obtained from OpenAI to the Saudi government even though he was not employed by it; as of October 24, 2026, no such charge had been filed.⁠[22]

X: Public account: https://x.com/alfozan (opens in a new window)⁠[6]

RAED Ventures: Official website: https://raed.vc/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

OpenAI: Official website: https://openai.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

Meta: Official website: https://about.meta.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[4]