In July 2021, the Pegasus Project revealed that a UAE-based agency targeted the phone of Hanan Elatr, the wife of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, using Pegasus a couple of months before his assassination. In December 2021, the Washington Post confirmed that a UAE agency indeed hacked her phone with Pegasus. In September 2022, Hanan Elatr announced that she planned to sue NSO Group as well as the Saudi and Emirati governments in the U.S. over alleged surveillance attempts on her. The Washington Post reported in June 2023 that she had indeed launched a lawsuit in the U.S. against the Israeli firm.
The Pegasus investigation also established that NSO Group's spyware was used to target the phones of Jamal Kashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, and of one of his close associates, and that the numbers of two other of his associates as well as two senior Turkish officials involved in the investigation of his homicide were selected for potential surveillance.