Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a former OpenAI engineer, was arrested by federal authorities last week on charges of planting a hidden recording device in an executive conference room at the AI company's San Francisco office, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice on Tuesday.
OpenAI discovered the thumb-sized device on 30 September. It was connected to a USB port behind a television in an executive meeting room. According to an FBI complaint, Alfozan installed the device around 28 September. The device contained a microphone and camera and was concealed inside toilet paper. Its stored data remained encrypted and inaccessible.
Alfozan had worked at OpenAI since July 2025. The FBI also found a similar customised device in his personal bag during the investigation. According to the complaint, Alfozan used an AI productivity tool to research meeting room schedules and capabilities. OpenAI reported that its own AI models identified the person responsible and traced the device's origins.
The company said it found evidence that Alfozan planned to place additional recording devices in other sensitive office areas to secretly record meetings. "At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated," OpenAI said in a statement on X.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that "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."
Alfozan made his initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday. According to his LinkedIn profile, which Middle East Eye could not independently verify, he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley and previously worked at Meta and Microsoft. He has been a legal permanent resident of the US since September 2020.
If convicted, Alfozan faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. He had not publicly responded to the allegations at the time of reporting. The FBI continues to investigate the incident.