OpenAI engineer charged with bugging executive conference room in San Francisco

An engineer at OpenAI has been charged with hiding a covert recording device in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco offices. Federal prosecutors say the room was regularly used for leadership meetings and confidential discussions with partners.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, is a Saudi national. He was arrested on Friday 9 October and appeared in federal court for the first time on Tuesday. He is charged with using or trying to use a device to intercept oral communications. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

The case is one of the first public criminal prosecutions over alleged insider surveillance at a frontier AI laboratory. FBI Director Kash Patel framed it in those terms. He said Alfozan had tried to record “sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology”.

According to the complaint, OpenAI staff found the device on or about 30 September. It had been plugged into a USB port on the back of a wall-mounted television in the executive conference room. The Wall Street Journal, citing the complaint, reported that the device was a thumb-sized circuit board with a microphone, wrapped in toilet paper. Prosecutors say it was installed around 28 September, which means it sat in the room for about two days before a security sweep found it.

OpenAI says it removed the device, closed the room and called the FBI. Investigators then put a camera in the room. On 5 October, prosecutors say, it recorded Alfozan entering the room and appearing to look behind the television. Office surveillance footage had already shown him near the room several times before the device was found, even though he had no authorisation to enter it or attend meetings there.

On the same day, Alfozan is alleged to have left a bag unattended in another part of the building. OpenAI security staff opened it and found his wallet and ID, along with a second recording device similar to the first. According to the FBI affidavit cited by the Journal, the second device had been modified to hide whatever it stored. When Alfozan came back for the bag, he asked about missing cash and personal items. He did not ask about the device.

Much of the complaint is about how Alfozan allegedly chose his target. Prosecutors say that in the weeks before the installation, he used an internal productivity tool to ask about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms and their capacities, calendars, and where “leadership and exec” and external partner meetings took place. According to Fortune, an FBI agent wrote that he chose this room because the meetings held there often involved highly confidential research, product and business-development information.

The complaint also involves his spouse. Prompts sent from a ChatGPT account linked to Alfozan’s wife asked how to build, install and remotely access a recording device. The FBI agent wrote that she appeared to have helped him. Court filings do not say whether she faces charges.

OpenAI says it fired Alfozan and is cooperating with investigators. The company also said it used its own AI models to analyse the device and trace where it came from. According to the Journal, OpenAI worked with the FBI to time his dismissal and arrest so the investigation would not be disrupted, and restricted his access to systems and buildings step by step. The company says it has found no evidence that he improperly accessed or removed model weights, source code or customer data.

His defence is stressing what the charge does not include. William Pernik, his lawyer, says Alfozan came to the United States in pursuit of a dream and will present all appropriate defences. In comments to the Journal, his lawyer pointed out that the charge concerns a federal recording statute, “not stealing trade secrets or working as a foreign agent”. Prosecutors have not publicly said who, if anyone, Alfozan meant to give recordings to.

Alfozan studied in the United States and has been a permanent resident since 2020. Before joining OpenAI in July 2025, he worked at the logistics start-up Nash and, earlier, at Meta. His LinkedIn profile lists him as a venture partner at Raed, a Saudi investment firm, which did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

There is precedent. In 2022, a former Twitter employee, Ahmad Abouammo, was convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia after passing on private information about users who criticised the kingdom.

Alfozan remains in federal custody. He is due back in court on 19 October for a detention hearing before Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse.