US prosecutors have accused a Saudi national of endangering US national security after placing a recording device in an OpenAI meeting room in which the company’s executives met with government officials.

In a legal filing on Monday, prosecutors argued Abdulrahman Alfozan was a flight risk, in part because his wife and three-month-old son had already departed the country and because he has “considerable support” from the Saudi government.

In the filing, prosecutors noted that Saudi Arabia has no extradition treaty with the United States, has “limitless” resources, and has the ability to provide “extraordinary travel assistance, including based on similar circumstances in this District”.

Audio bug

“He has the connections needed not only to flee, but to build a new life in Saudi Arabia,” prosecutors stated, arguing Alfozan should be detained pending trial.

Alfozan, a 35-year-old engineer and venture partner at Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm, has spent about 15 years in the United States while obtaining a master’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley and working for various tech firms, including Meta and OpenAI.

He had worked at OpenAI for about a year before allegedly planting the recording device, which was discovered attached to the back of a television in a meeting room on 30 September.

A camera was placed in the room and, on 5 October, Alfozan was filmed entering the room and appearing to check behind the television where the device had been planted.

He was arrested by the FBI on 9 October and was fired by the company.

The arrest came three days before he was scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia with his wife and son on a one-way ticket.

Following his arrest, Alfozan’s wife and son flew to Doha, Qatar, on 10 October on a business-class ticket paid for by an unidentified member of the Saudi military, the filing said.

The family’s earlier tickets, scheduled for 12 October, were paid for by the Saudi government, prosecutors said.

They noted that the suspect’s alleged conduct could pose “a danger to the national security of the United States” as government officials had met in the conference room during the period when the bug was planted there.

At a detention hearing on Monday, Alfozan’s lawyer argued he maintained strong ties to the United States and was not a flight risk, but magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse denied bail and ruled that Alfozan must remain incarcerated for the time being.