OpenAI engineer who is charged with planting bug advised Saudis

SAN FRANCISCO — The OpenAI engineer who was charged this week with planting a secret recording device at the artificial intelligence company recently said he helped advise government agencies in Saudi Arabia on technology, and was listed as a partner at a venture capital firm alongside a member of the Saudi royal family. In an Arabic podcast interview last month, Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, said he and other Saudi tech professionals in Silicon Valley had formed a group that advised Saudi organizations, including the kingdom’s social insurance agency. Separately, RAED Ventures, a venture capital firm in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, lists Alfozan as a venture partner on its website, along with Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud. Alfozan has a long history in Silicon Valley. He was an engineer at Meta before joining a startup that went through Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator. He gained permanent residency status in the United States in 2020, according to cou