An OpenAI Employee Allegedly Used a Chatbot to Help Plant a Recording Device at the Office
Chatbot prompts reveal the engineer’s alleged efforts to set up a covert listening device days before one was found in a meeting room used by high-level executives.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi Arabian national and US permanent resident, is accused of attempting to secretly record sensitive communications at OpenAI's office using an internal tool and a chatbot. According to federal prosecutors, Alfozan used the productivity agent and an AI chatbot to plan his covert operation over several weeks.
He reportedly asked about meetings in a specific conference room and technical questions about setting up a covert audio recording device using a chatbot linked to his spouse. OpenAI's security team found an additional encrypted recording device that had not been installed on Alfozan's bag at the office. Alfozan, who joined OpenAI in July 2025 and was fired last Friday, faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
The FBI and OpenAI discovered the alleged listening device, a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense, hidden in toilet paper inserted into a USB port on a television in the targeted conference room on September 30. The device was manufactured for $13.99 and is equipped with a detachable camera sensor and microSD storage. OpenAI claims they have no evidence of Alfozan accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data.
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