On Monday, a court granted the US government's request to deny release of a former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging a top-secret conference room to steal the frontier lab’s secrets.

In a court filing Sunday, US attorney Craig Missakian argued that Abdulrahman Alfozan must continue to be detained while the US makes its case that Alfozan brazenly spied on OpenAI, either for his own personal business gain or to benefit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Evidence showed that Alfozan had been chatting with a member of the KSA royal family on WhatsApp, while pursuing opportunities to permanently move back to Saudi Arabia during the country's biggest AI push yet, the government argued. Shortly before his arrest, the FBI found he accessed a folder called "Saudi Gov Docs" on his iPhone, where he also allegedly stored photos of a second bug he planted in the offices.

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Saudi officials paid for his wife and son to fly out of the U.S. and offered to cover his bail, according to court filings. A judge ordered the engineer to remain in custody.

© Aaron Wojack for The New York Times

The employee, now fired, had said he advised government agencies in Saudi Arabia. He was also listed as a partner at a venture firm with a Saudi prince.

© Aaron Wojack for The New York Times

The employee, now fired, had said he advised government agencies in Saudi Arabia. He was also listed as a partner at a venture firm with a Saudi prince.

© Aaron Wojack for The New York Times

OpenAI said that the employee had placed a device built to evade detection and that he had planned to secretly record meetings in other sensitive spaces.

© Aaron Wojack for The New York Times

News that the artificial intelligence giant’s sales weren’t growing as fast as investors had expected added to concerns about the A.I. boom.

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As Xi Jinping visits President Trump in Washington, the leaders are expected to discuss claims that China is surreptitiously copying American A.I. technologies, a process known as distillation.

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