US Court Orders Fired Saudi Engineer To Remain In Custody In OpenAI Case

• A US judge ordered former OpenAI employee Abdulrahman Alfozan to stay in custody without bail.
• Alfozan is accused of placing a recording device in an OpenAI office in San Francisco.
• Prosecutors raised concerns because Alfozan had often been in contact with a member of the Saudi royal family.

A US federal judge on Monday ordered a former OpenAI employee from Saudi Arabia to remain in custody without bail because the judge believed he might flee.

“There is a significant risk that he will not appear in court,” US District Judge Alex Tse said in a courtroom in San Francisco. He rejected a request from Abdulrahman Alfozan’s lawyers to release him.

Alfozan is accused of placing a recording device in one of the San Francisco offices of OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT. Prosecutors argued that he should remain in custody because he had often been in contact with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family.

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