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Abdulrahman Alfozan, the former Saudi OpenAI employee accused of spying on the AI lab, has pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges after being arrested last month as part of an FBI investigation.
The former OpenAI engineer was arrested after the maker of ChatGPT found a recording device wrapped in toilet paper and hidden behind a television in one of the executive conference rooms at its San Francisco headquarters.
The case has further heightened concerns that major U.S. AI companies are targets of international espionage seeking access to cutting-edge technologies and trade secrets.
The FBI says Alfozan placed the bug in OpenAI’s offices around September 28, where it was discovered by the startup’s security team. They say he used a “productivity agent” to search for a meeting room used by executives for confidential high-level discussions, where the bug was later discovered.
Prosecutors said he had “frequent” contact on WhatsApp with an unnamed member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family for at least last year and had “considerable support from a foreign government.”
Alfozan pleaded not guilty Friday in a busy courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He briefly waved and smiled at the public gallery as he was led into the room.
If convicted, Alfozan faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, as well as a $250,000 fine, for one count of unlawful interception of communications. The federal judge set the next hearing in the case for November 17.
OpenAI said there is no indication that customer data, source code or the “weightings” that determine how its systems work were stolen.
U.S. AI companies have increased security and monitoring of employees due to fears of industrial espionage from foreign countries. Three senior Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Thursday called on Jensen Huang, chief executive of AI chip group Nvidia, to brief their committees after reports he was the target of a Chinese spying operation.
Alfozan, an engineer at OpenAI since last year, has been a permanent legal resident of the United States since 2020. He was also listed as a venture partner at Riyadh-based Raed Ventures.
Alfozan was a recognizable figure at Silicon Valley tech events and a documentary about him had previously aired on Saudi television. Before joining OpenAI, he worked at Facebook and founded a logistics start-up, Nash.
According to court documents, Alfozan had booked a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia with his wife and another family member for three days after the date of his arrest.
An AI chatbot associated with Alfozan’s wife had meanwhile been used to research how to build a USB recording device, the U.S. Department of Justice complaint says. Alfozan was also shown entering the conference room in CCTV recordings.
William Pernik, Alfozan’s attorney, previously said the alleged activity was “completely out of character for him” and that his defense would “relentlessly investigate all evidence produced by the government in this case to understand what really happened.”
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