Federal prosecutors have charged an OpenAI engineer with hiding an audio recording device inside an executive conference room at one of the company’s San Francisco offices, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, described by prosecutors as a 35-year-old Saudi national and US permanent resident, made an initial court appearance on one count of using a device to intercept oral communications. The charge carries up to five years in prison if he is convicted.
The complaint alleges the device was concealed in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port behind a television. OpenAI’s security team found it on September 30 during a countersurveillance sweep and later discovered a second recorder in Alfozan’s bag.
An AI chatbot as a planning tool
Prosecutors say Alfozan spent weeks querying a productivity agent and an AI chatbot to plan the operation. He used an internal OpenAI tool to check meetings scheduled in the targeted room and, according to the filing, asked technical questions about covert recording through a chatbot account tied to his spouse.
The room is restricted to executives and their assistants and hosts leadership meetings, technical sessions, and briefings with government officials and business partners.
FBI director Kash Patel said Alfozan sought to capture sensitive discussions about the company’s superintelligence work, while the company reported no sign that model weights, code, or customer data left the building.
The company fired Alfozan on Friday to coincide with his arrest. He joined OpenAI in July 2025 and previously worked at Meta, according to a purported LinkedIn profile.
The case lands as Washington weighs tougher rules on insider threats at frontier labs, and it highlights a quieter risk that safety frameworks written for outside attackers rarely address.
