An OpenAI engineer was arrested for allegedly planting a covert recording device in a conference room used for confidential executive discussions at the company.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national who worked at OpenAI, was arrested on Oct. 9 and charged with using or attempting to use an electronic device to intercept oral communications. He appeared in federal court on Oct. 13 and remains in custody. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, he is scheduled for a detention hearing on Oct. 19.
“Abdulrahman Alfozan allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology,” Kash Patel, director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said in a statement
The investigation began after OpenAI employees discovered a concealed audio recording device on Sept. 30 in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco office. The device was plugged into a USB port on the back of a television and allegedly concealed with toilet paper.
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According to the complaint, the room was reserved for discussions involving highly confidential technical, commercial and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans and business-development opportunities. It was also used for discussions about nonpublic information concerning OpenAI’s technical progress, strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements and commercial relationships.
According to prosecutors, the device was installed around Sept. 28. Its stored data was encrypted, preventing investigators from immediately accessing the recordings.
Investigators allege that surveillance footage showed Alfozan near the room on several occasions, despite not having permission to access it or attend its meetings. Security footage also showed him looking behind the television where the device had been installed.
“Protecting American SI [super intelligence] innovation is essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security, and the FBI views that mission as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities,” Patel added.
The complaint further states that Alfozan used an internal productivity tool to gather information about the office layout, including meeting room schedules and executive movements. Investigators also examined prompts submitted through a chatbot account associated with Alfozan’s spouse. The prompts included questions about building and customizing an audio recorder, improving audio quality and live listening, encrypting an SD card, and enabling remote access.
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Authorities have not publicly established a motive for the alleged actions.
The investigation also found that on the day he entered the executive conference room, Alfozan allegedly left another recording device inside a bag unattended in a separate room at the office. The bag also contained his wallet and identification.
The incident led OpenAI to terminate Alfozan’s employment and refer the matter to the FBI.
The company said it found no indication that the employee had improperly accessed or extracted its model weights, source code or customer data.
According to Alfozan’s LinkedIn profile, he holds a master’s degree in data science from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining OpenAI, he worked at Meta as a senior systems engineer and was a founding engineer at Nash.
OpenAI is cooperating with the ongoing investigation. If convicted, Alfozan faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of supervised release.