Abdulrahman Alfozan

Abdulrahman Alfozan is a Saudi national and software engineer who, according to OpenAI, worked on the product team at the company's San Francisco offices from July 2025 until his arrest. The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced on October 13, 2026 that he was arrested on October 9 and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. He is also a venture partner at RAED Ventures, an early-stage investor focused on the region.¹

Education

A LinkedIn profile under his name lists the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California, Berkeley among his schools.² The CNN report on the arrest cites the same profile for both institutions.³ RAED Ventures' announcement of his venture role says he "studied computer science and engineering at MIT."⁴ The profile lists MIT projects from 2012 and 2013: MAS.863, a digital fabrication course that he attended in the fall of 2012; Lounge, a web-based housing platform for undergraduate dormitories that placed second in the MIT 2013 iCampus competition; and work at the MIT Center for Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing on protecting RFID tags through channel randomization.² The profile also lists a poster at EECScon, the first annual MIT Course 6 undergraduate research conference, held April 16, 2013. The conference guide lists the poster as "The automated room project: a multidisciplinary modular design experiment," with the supervisor given as "Self." The abstract describes room automation gadgets built with 3D printing, laser cutting, PCB design, microcontroller programming and networking, among them an automated curtain, a keyless door entry system and music-driven lights.⁵ His LinkedIn profile gives the conference date as January 2013 and titles the poster "Low-Cost Software-Defined Radio for 8-bit Microcontrollers."² The profile also lists a King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Gifted Students Scholarship, described as a university full scholarship under the KAUST Gifted Students Program,⁶ and a finalist entry at the 2009 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.² Research internships are listed at KAUST and at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.²

The San Francisco Standard reported that the LinkedIn profile gives a master's degree in data science from UC Berkeley.⁷

Saudi Competitions, Scholarships and Talks

Two separate Saudi competitions of spring 2020 appear in his record.

The first is the Saudi COVID-19 Challenge, run by the Saudi Data Community (المجموعة السعودية للبيانات), which describes itself as a community initiative of data specialists and enthusiasts.⁸ A public GitHub README for another participant's entry states that the challenge was held by the community on March 15, 2020, asked entrants for a report using open COVID-19 data, and had more than 150 participants.⁹ Alfozan placed second; the community's account on X congratulated him on April 12, 2020 for second place in the "#تحدي_كوفيد١٩" (COVID-19 challenge) and, the same day, congratulated a different participant for third place.¹⁰ His public GitHub repository "COVID-19-notebook," described as the "Saudi COVID-19 Notebook," links the challenge announcement and the April 12 post.¹¹ His LinkedIn profile lists the entry as "Saudi COVID-19 Challenge, Mar 2020, 2nd place, $50k prize."²

The second is the Homathon, an online hackathon run by the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones (SAFCSP) with a registration period of April 14 to 18, 2020 and an event period of April 19 to 25, 2020.¹²¹³ The launch coverage gave a total prize pool of $85,000, with $50,000 for first place, $25,000 for second and $15,000 for third.¹³ His LinkedIn profile lists "Homathon COVID-19 Challenge, issued by safcsp.org.sa, May 2020, 1st place," with a link to homathon.com.² A team of two engineering alumnae of Alfaisal University placed third with a project called "Raqeeb."¹⁴ The Homathon's English homepage lists Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi, president of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), among its speakers, and Alfaisal University states that the Homathon was set up by the federation "in collaboration with the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority."¹²¹⁴

The profile dates an Intel International Science and Engineering Fair finalist entry to May 2009 and a WorldSkills International Medallion for Excellence in IT/Software Applications to September 2009.²

The profile lists talks at PyData Riyadh in 2020. PyData Riyadh announced on August 12, 2020 a talk on MLflow by "@alfozan, Systems Engineer at Facebook," and a second MLflow session on October 14, 2020 ("As per your demands we have @alfozan back with us for MLflow part 2").¹⁵ The profile also lists talks at the Spark + AI Summit in 2019 and 2020.²

The profile lists a KAUST research internship in the Networking Research Lab from June to August 2016.²

Reach Labs and Internships

According to the San Francisco Standard, the LinkedIn profile lists him as a systems engineer at Reach Labs, a wireless power startup in the Y Combinator summer 2015 batch, and as an intern at Microsoft, SAP in Berlin and Akamai Technologies.⁷

Technical Background

The LinkedIn profile lists a software engineering internship at Akamai Technologies from June to August 2012 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It says he "Developed sherlock, a policy-aware tool for network packets capturing on Windows servers" and "Deployed sherlock on the internal Akamai network targeting over 15,000 servers."²

The profile lists a 2015 role as systems engineer at Reach Labs, where he "Led the design and development of novel long-range phased-arrays wireless charging solutions" and worked on "energy receivers with real-time power tracking."² The Y Combinator company page describes Reach Labs as "building long-range wireless power networks that deliver scalable, resilient energy infrastructure" and lists the company in the Summer 2015 batch.¹⁶

GitHub

The public GitHub account "alfozan," created August 15, 2011, carries the name Abdulrahman Alfozan, the company "OpenAI," the location San Francisco, CA, and the X username alfozan. It lists 16 public repositories, 0 public gists and 117 followers, and membership in three organizations: prestodb, bitsence (created August 28, 2016) and Andal-us (display name "Andalus," location "Riyadh / Dubai," created March 2, 2017).¹⁷

His own repositories include COVID-19-notebook (created May 2, 2020), Air-Quality-Dashboard (March 2020, for an Awair sensor), mlflow-example (August 2020), trending-dashboard (June 2021), AI-file-renamer (December 2025), WhatsApp-Local-Viewer (February 2026, "Local read-only Flask app to browse WhatsApp backup chats and media") and python-project-template (May 2025). Forks include openai-agents-python (April 2026), openai/plugins (May 2026), opentelemetry-python-contrib (May 2026), pyngrok (forked August 14, 2020), spark and mlflow.¹⁷

The public event stream shows pull requests by the account to openai/openai-cookbook (all times UTC): number 3106 opened and merged on September 16, 2026; 3109 opened September 17 and merged September 17; 3127 opened September 22 and merged September 23; 3134 opened September 25 and merged September 26; and 3140 opened at 17:33 and merged at 17:45 on September 29, 2026. An issue comment on openai/plugins was posted on September 29, 2026 at 00:53.¹⁷

Meta

The LinkedIn profile lists him as a senior systems engineer at Meta Platforms from 2017 to 2022.²⁷ RAED Ventures' announcement describes five years at Meta as a senior engineer specializing in machine learning and data platforms.⁴ The profile lists him as a speaker at the Spark + AI Summit in 2019 and in 2020, and lists an entry titled Spark Fast Transforms among his Meta work on Apache Spark.² The 2019 talk, "Powering Custom Apps at Facebook using Spark Script Transformation," has a slide deck on the Databricks account on SlideShare, whose title slide reads "Abdulrahman Alfozan, Spark Summit Europe." The deck describes Spark script transformations as a more flexible alternative to user-defined functions and traces Spark's use at Facebook from experiments in 2015 to full production in 2018.¹⁸ The 2020 talk is listed under the title "Securing Apache Spark Applications at Facebook."²

Nash

The LinkedIn profile lists him as a founding engineer at Nash (company) from 2022 to August 2025.²⁷ Nash is a delivery-logistics API company founded by Mahmoud Ghulman and Aziz Alghunaim. Andreessen Horowitz partnered with the company on a seed round in the fall of 2021, and on July 26, 2022 announced a $20 million Series A round that the firm also led, bringing total funding to $27.8 million.¹⁹²⁰ Both co-founders are described as having attended MIT.¹⁹²⁰

RAED Ventures

RAED Ventures describes itself as an early-stage investor in the MENA region.²¹ Its announcement of Alfozan as a venture partner describes him as then a founding engineer at Nash, quotes Omar Almajdouie as the firm's founding partner, and says that "he will focus on identifying promising investment opportunities." The page's structured metadata gives February 8, 2025 as the publication date, and the Internet Archive holds a capture dated March 23, 2025.⁴ The Altss investment platform describes RAED as offering "access to Saudi and GCC markets."²¹

On October 13, 2026 Scott Stedman wrote on X that Alfozan is a venture partner at RAED Ventures, "which has received funding from Saudi government-backed entities." Stedman wrote that the firm "has a Saudi royal family member, Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud, as a venture partner."²² In a second post the same day, Stedman wrote that Khalid bin Bader Al Saud "appears to be the son of Brigadier General Prince Bader bin Saud bin Mohammed Al Saud," who in Stedman's account served in the special operations section of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Agency. Stedman also wrote that Khalid "also founded Echelon (company), an AI company that says it serves Saudi government and defense customers."²³

OpenAI

OpenAI's spokesperson, Nate Evans, told TechCrunch that Alfozan started with the company in July 2025 and worked on the product team.²⁴ A LinkedIn entry for the OpenAI role gives September 2025 as the start month, which differs from the company's date.² The Smashi Business post described below calls him an Engineering Lead in San Francisco.²⁵

Between April 15 and May 7, 2026 the GitHub account "alfozan" opened six pull requests to the openai-agents-python repository, including "feat: add BoxMount support" (pull request 2988, April 21, 2026), "Update examples and defaults to GPT-5.5" (3016, April 23, 2026) and "fix: Responses context-management extra_args collision" (3185, May 7, 2026).²⁶

The Smashi Business Post

On September 12, 2026 the Smashi Business account on X published a post stating that Alfozan "is currently the only Saudi employee at OpenAI, where he works as an Engineering Lead in San Francisco." The post says that Alfozan spoke in a video about his team's first product launch, and it quotes his advice to Saudis entering AI: "Computer science remains the most suitable major."²⁵ The San Francisco Standard reported that a YouTube video the previous month had touted him as the only Saudi employee at OpenAI.⁷ In his October 13 post Stedman wrote that he had been told by a source that Alfozan was OpenAI's only Saudi employee.²²

The Recording Device

The Justice Department's release summarizes the complaint as alleging that OpenAI personnel found a device, called Recording Device 1 in the complaint (OpenAI is "Company 1" in the complaint, according to the Northern District of California's version of the release), on September 30, 2026. It was inserted into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room in one of the company's San Francisco buildings, and it was concealed in toilet paper. OpenAI determined that the device was installed on or about September 28, and that its contents were encrypted.¹ The Associated Press and TechCrunch report the same details from the complaint.²⁴²⁷

According to the complaint, closed-circuit footage showed Alfozan near the conference room on multiple dates before the discovery, although he had no authority to enter the room or attend meetings held there. The complaint describes those meetings as frequently involving highly confidential technical, commercial and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, business-development opportunities, and nonpublic information about OpenAI's capabilities, priorities, "government engagements" and commercial relationships.¹²⁸ AP reported that a camera added to the room after the discovery captured him entering the room and checking behind the television, according to the FBI.²⁷ A photograph published with the TechCrunch report carries the overlay "2026-10-05 13:20:47" to "13:21:30."²⁴

The complaint alleges that before September 28 Alfozan used a productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about OpenAI's building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars, the locations of "leadership and exec" offices, and external partner meetings.¹²⁸ It further alleges that a chatbot account associated with Alfozan's spouse, which shared multiple identifiers and attributes with his own chatbot account, submitted prompts between September 24 and September 30 about building, customizing, installing, audio recording, testing, obfuscating and remotely accessing a device. The quoted prompts include "build[ing] a continuous audio recorder," "customiz[ing] Wi-Fi . . . connectivity," "improv[ing] audio and live listening," and "encrypt[ing] the SD card." On September 27 and 28 the same account submitted prompts about Recording Device 1, including its custom header and unique MAC address.¹²⁸²⁹

On October 5, the complaint alleges, Alfozan entered the executive conference room and appeared to look behind the television where the device had been inserted. The same day he left a bag unattended in a different room in an OpenAI building. Security personnel who opened it found his wallet and identification, along with a second recording device similar to the first.¹

Arrest and Charge

Alfozan, 35, was arrested on Friday, October 9, 2026.¹ OpenAI said that it fired him that day and coordinated the timing with the FBI so as not to disrupt the investigation. According to OpenAI, it had gradually restricted his access to systems and spaces from September 30, then suspended his physical and network access, placed him on leave and secured his company-issued equipment.⁷ He made his initial appearance in federal court on October 13 and remains in custody.²⁷

The charge is using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical or other device to intercept oral communications, under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(b).²⁸ If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.¹ Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Parker of the Northern District of California is prosecuting the case with assistance from Trial Attorney Kate Tagert of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.¹ The release states that the prosecution is in support of National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 (NSPM-11), "designed to support American superiority in super intelligence technology."¹ The memorandum, signed June 5, 2026, is titled "Artificial Intelligence in the National Security Enterprise" and uses the terms "artificial intelligence" and "AI" throughout.³⁰ Executive Order 14434 of September 29, 2026 directs executive agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI."³¹ A detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse is set for October 19, 2026.⁷

Statements

Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said: "According to the complaint unsealed today, Abdulrahman Alfozan allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer's executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company's super intelligence technology." He added that "the FBI views that mission as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities," and thanked "Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and our law enforcement partners."¹²⁸

U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said: "For us it is a matter of national security. This arrest highlights our relentless efforts in partnership with the FBI to identify and prosecute those who seek to steal our technology, as alleged in the complaint."¹ Scott Schelble, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco field office, said the agency is committed to protecting sensitive research and proprietary technology.⁷ Jay Clayton, the Director of National Intelligence, called winning the global super intelligence race a national security prerogative and credited the president's leadership in creating the Super Intelligence Force.¹

OpenAI said on X: "At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data."²⁴ The company described the device as "sophisticated" and said it contained "advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring."²⁴ Its spokesperson said that employees used the company's models to analyze the device and identified "that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier."²⁷ OpenAI also said it has evidence that Alfozan intended to place other recording devices in sensitive spaces to secretly record meetings.⁷ The company said it treats protecting its technology, data and people as "a matter of national importance."⁷