In January 2020, FTI Consulting claimed that in May 2018 with "medium to high confidence" the phone of Jeff Bezos had been hacked by a file sent from the WhatsApp account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi Arabian embassy to the United States has denied the allegations. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post newspaper and founder of the company Amazon, engaged FTI Consulting in February 2019 after the National Enquirer reported details of Bezos's affair in January 2019. FTI Consulting did not link the National Enquirer to the hack. In December 2021, the FBI stated they could not find proof to substantiate claims that Saudi Arabia hacked Jeff Bezos's phone, and has considered an investigation into those allegations a low priority.
Background Starting in September 2017, The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, published a series of columns by Jamal Khashoggi that were critical of Saudi Arabia or bin Salman. In April 2018, Bezos attended a small dinner with bin Salman and exchanged WhatsApp numbers. Bezos and bin Salman proceeded to exchange friendly messages. Khashoggi was assassinated in October 2018; Washington Post reporting became increasingly critical of the role of Saudi regime and bin Salman in the murder.
Alleged incident According to a United Nations analysis of the evidence of surveillance on Bezos's phone, the following events occurred on May 1, 2018:A message from the Crown Prince account was sent to Mr. Bezos through WhatsApp. The message is an encrypted video file. It is later established, with reasonable certainty, that the video's downloader infects Mr. Bezos' phone with malicious code.
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