OpenAI engineer arrested for planting recording device in executive meeting room

Federal prosecutors have charged Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old OpenAI engineer, over the alleged installation of a covert recording device at the company's offices. Wired AI, Decrypt, and NewsCord reported that Alfozan was arrested after the listening device was discovered in a meeting room used by high-level executives. [1][5][7]

According to court filings cited by Wired AI and NewsCord, federal prosecutors described Alfozan as a Saudi Arabian national and United States permanent resident. NewsCord reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation filed the charges against the engineer, while Decrypt noted that OpenAI said its own AI tools helped identify him. [1][5][7]

Wired AI reported that Alfozan allegedly spent several weeks querying a productivity agent and an AI chatbot to plan the surveillance operation. Prosecutors said he used an internal OpenAI tool to check scheduled meetings in the targeted conference room and accessed a chatbot account linked to his spouse to ask technical questions about setting up a hidden audio recorder. [1]

OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence public benefit corporation based in San Francisco, California. The company develops generative AI models, including the ChatGPT series, Codex, and GPT Image models. [8]