Saudi OpenAI Engineer Accused of Planting Office Recording Device

A Saudi engineer employed by OpenAI has been arrested after allegedly hiding a recording device in the artificial intelligence company’s executive conference room to capture highly confidential meetings.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, was arrested on Friday and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, the US Department of Justice said Tuesday.

OpenAI executives said the company’s technical surveillance countermeasures team discovered the device during a security sweep on September 30. It was plugged into a USB port on the back of a television in a conference room at one of OpenAI’s San Francisco offices.

According to a criminal complaint, the device had been concealed in toilet paper and was installed around September 28.

Prosecutors said surveillance footage showed Alfozan near the conference room several times before the device was found, despite the fact that he was not authorized to enter the room or attend meetings there.

The meetings held in the room often covered sensitive technical, commercial and strategic matters, including proprietary research, product development plans and OpenAI’s engagements with government agencies, prosecutors said.

The alleged motive remains unclear. However, US Attorney Craig Missakian said federal officials are treating the case as “a matter of national security” as the United States competes with China for leadership in artificial intelligence.

Before the device was discovered, Alfozan allegedly used a productivity tool to seek information about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms, room capacities and calendars. He also queried the locations of company executives and meetings with outside partners, according to the criminal complaint.

Prosecutors further allege that a chatbot account linked to Alfozan’s wife shared identifiers with his account and submitted prompts between September 24 and September 30 about building, installing, concealing and remotely accessing a recording device.

The prompts reportedly included requests for information on how to “build a continuous audio recorder” and “encrypt the SD card.”

On September 27 and 28, the account also asked about the specific device later discovered, including its unique MAC address, the complaint alleges.

After OpenAI employees found the device on September 30, the company said they used its own AI models to identify what it was and trace its origin.

On October 5, surveillance footage allegedly captured Alfozan entering the conference room and appearing to look behind the television where the recording device had been installed.

That day, he also allegedly left a bag unattended in another room at OpenAI’s headquarters. When security staff opened it, they found his wallet and identification, along with a second recording device similar to the first.

OpenAI executives now say they have evidence suggesting Alfozan intended to place additional recording devices in sensitive areas to secretly capture more meetings.

In a statement, company officials described the device as “sophisticated.” They said it was built to avoid detection and included advanced encryption, audio-monitoring capabilities and a mechanism for transferring data discreetly.

Alfozan had worked as an engineer for the company’s product team, and was first hired in July 2025.

OpenAI said it has since coordinated the timing of Alfozan’s termination with the FBI to avoid disrupting the investigation, and he was officially fired on Friday, the same day that he was arrested.

But executives at the company had already started restricting his access to systems and spaces following the discovery of the recording device, then suspended his physical and network access, placed him on leave and secured his company-issued equipment. 

‘At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data,’ the company noted as it vowed to continue to support federal authorities in their investigation.

It also noted that it treats protecting its technology, data and people ‘as a matter of national importance,’ and thanked the agents and prosecutors who ‘moved quickly to make an arrest.’

Alfozan had earlier been featured in a video touting him as the only Saudi employee at OpenAI.

‘Honestly, this one year felt like five years anywhere else,’ he said of his experience in the YouTube video.

Prior to joining the artificial intelligence giant, Alfozan was a founding engineer at Nash, an AI infrastructure company for logistics, from 2022 through August 2025, according to his LinkedIn page.

He also worked as a senior systems engineer at Meta from 2017 to 2022.

Alfozan’s earlier experiences include a stint as a systems engineer at Reach Labs, a wireless power startup, and internships at Microsoft, SAP in Berlin and Akamai Technologies.

He had obtained his master’s degree in data science from UC Berkeley in 2025 and had previously attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Alfozan is now scheduled to appear in court for a detention hearing on October 19. 

If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine followed by three years of supervised release.

In the meantime, FBI Director Kash Patel said protecting America’s AI innovation remains one of the bureau’s most important counterintelligence priorities. 

‘Protecting American SI 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,’ he said in a statement, using the acronym for the Trump administration’s preferred term of ‘Super Intelligence.’

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton added that ‘this serious situation underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative – and why President Trump’s leadership in creating the Super Intelligence force is so important.’