OpenAI Engineer Charged With Bugging Executive Conference Room

Federal prosecutors charged a 35-year-old OpenAI engineer with hiding an audio recording device in an executive conference room at the company's San Francisco headquarters, the San Francisco Standard reports. Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national hired in July 2025 as engineering lead on the company's AI agents platform, was arrested Friday and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications.

OpenAI personnel found the device Sept. 30. It was "plugged into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room and had been concealed in toilet paper," the complaint says. The company determined it was installed around Sept. 28, and its contents were encrypted. Surveillance footage showed Alfozan near the room on multiple dates before the discovery, though he was not authorized to enter. On Oct. 5, prosecutors say, he entered the conference room and appeared to look behind the television; a second similar device later turned up in an unattended bag alongside his wallet and ID.

"For us it is a matter of national security," U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said in a statement. FBI Director Kash Patel said protecting U.S. AI innovation is among the bureau's highest counterintelligence priorities.

OpenAI said it has no indication that Alfozan improperly accessed or took model weights, source code, or customer data, and the company used its own AI models to determine what the device was and where it came from before referring the matter to the FBI. Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 13 it gradually restricted his system access, suspended physical and network access, placed him on leave, and secured his equipment.

A detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse is set for Oct. 19.