Saudi man arrested over hidden recorder at OpenAI office

Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national and engineer at OpenAI, has been arrested and charged with allegedly installing a secret recording device in an executive meeting room at the company's San Francisco offices. According to Gulf News, the device was concealed in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port behind a television in a room used for confidential discussions regarding research, products, and business plans.

Quartz reports that meetings held in the room involved discussions of proprietary research, product plans, and government engagements.

OpenAI security personnel discovered the sophisticated device on September 30, two days after investigators believe it was installed, and the company subsequently fired the employee. KahawaTungu reports that OpenAI used its own AI models to track that the device had been planted by an employee before alerting the FBI. While the company stated it has no indication that customer data, source code, or model weights were inappropriately accessed or taken, the FBI's investigation remains ongoing.

Prosecutors allege that Alfozan used a productivity tool to search for information regarding executive meeting schedules, office buildings, and meeting room capacities. Gulf News noted that CCTV footage showed Alfozan near the executive conference room on several occasions, despite not being authorized to access the room or attend meetings there. Alfozan, who had worked at the firm since July 2025, was arrested on October 9 and appeared in federal court on October 13.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch, Gulf News, KahawaTungu, Quartz, Times of India — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.