OpenAI Engineer Charged with Planting Hidden Recording Device in Executive Conference Room
A Saudi Arabian national who worked as an OpenAI engineer has been arrested and charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical or other device to intercept oral communications, the Justice Department announced on October 13 (release no. 26-1173). Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, an OpenAI engineer since July 2025, was arrested on October 9 and made his initial appearance in federal court on October 13. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. The case was investigated by the FBI and is being heard in the Northern District of California.
According to the complaint, on or about September 30 OpenAI personnel discovered a surreptitious audio recording device ("Recording Device 1") inserted into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room in one of the company's San Francisco buildings. The device had been concealed in toilet paper, was installed on or about September 28, and its contents were encrypted. Closed-circuit television footage showed Alfozan near the executive conference room on multiple dates before the device was discovered, although he had no authority to access the room or participate in the meetings held there. Meetings in that room frequently involved highly confidential technical, commercial and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans and business-development opportunities, as well as nonpublic information about OpenAI's technical progress, strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements and commercial relationships.
The complaint further alleges that before September 28, Alfozan used a productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about OpenAI's building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars, "leadership and exec" locations and external partner meetings. A chatbot account associated with Alfozan's spouse, which shared multiple identifiers and attributes with Alfozan's own account, submitted prompts between September 24 and September 30 related to building, customizing, installing, testing, hiding and remotely accessing a recording device, including inquiries about building a continuous audio recorder, customizing Wi-Fi connectivity, improving audio and live listening, and encrypting the SD card. Prompts submitted on September 27 and 28 were specifically related to Recording Device 1, including its custom header and unique MAC address.
The complaint also alleges that on October 5, Alfozan entered the executive conference room and appeared to look behind the television into which Recording Device 1 had been inserted. The same day, he left a bag unattended in a different room in an OpenAI building; security personnel opened it and found, among other things, his wallet and identification and another recording device ("Recording Device 2") similar to Recording Device 1.
Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton said the situation underscores why winning the global superintelligence race is a national security prerogative, and thanked the FBI for its diligence and swift action. FBI Director Kash Patel said the complaint alleges Alfozan concealed a covert recording device inside his employer's executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company's superintelligence technology, and that protecting American superintelligence innovation is essential to the nation's economic strength and national security and one of the FBI's highest counterintelligence priorities. U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California said the Bay Area and Silicon Valley lead the world in developing tomorrow's technology and his office will continue to stand at the forefront of protecting that American innovation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Parker is prosecuting the case, with assistance from Trial Attorney Kate Tagert of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. The Justice Department said the prosecution supports National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 (NSPM-11), designed to support American superiority in superintelligence technology. The charges in the complaint are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: OpenAI总部所在的旧金山Pioneer大楼，HaeB摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0
