Former OpenAI Engineer Charged With Planting Hidden Recorder

A former employee of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI has been charged with planting a hidden recording device in an executive conference room at its San Francisco office. Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national who joined OpenAI in July 2025, was arrested on October 9, 2026, and made his first federal court appearance on October 13.

Prosecutors allege that Alfozan installed the device around September 28 by connecting it through a USB port on the back of a conference room television. The device was allegedly concealed in toilet paper and contained encrypted material. OpenAI personnel discovered the device on or about September 30, which led to an investigation into the matter.

The investigation did not end there. Prosecutors allege that Alfozan appeared near or returned to the conference-room area on October 5. CCTV footage reportedly showed him near the conference room, and OpenAI security personnel found an unattended bag containing his wallet, identification, and a second recording device similar to the first. This discovery further supports the allegations against Alfozan.

Prosecutors also allege that chatbot activity associated with Alfozan or an account linked to his spouse included recorded research queries. These queries reportedly covered building, customizing, installing, disguising, remotely accessing, and encrypting a continuous audio recorder. The investigation suggests that Alfozan was attempting to gather sensitive information about OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology.

OpenAI turned its own technology on the problem by using AI models to help analyze the device and identify the source of the recordings. However, the investigation ultimately belonged to law enforcement. OpenAI fired Alfozan and referred the matter to the FBI, which took over the case. The company stated that it found no indication that model weights, source code, or confidential files had been improperly accessed or removed.