OpenAI Employee Arrested for Allegedly Planting Hidden Recording Device in Office

An employee of OpenAI has been arrested and charged with the alleged use of a hidden recording device within a San Francisco office, according to statements from the artificial intelligence company and the U.S. Justice Department. Abdulrahman Alfozan, identified as a Saudi citizen, was taken into custody on October 9. This arrest occurred more than a week after OpenAI staff discovered an audio recording device concealed in the back of a television within an executive conference room, the Justice Department reported on Tuesday. Mr. Alfozan is accused of planting the device and is currently being held, having made an appearance in San Francisco federal court on Tuesday. He had joined OpenAI in July of the previous year and was part of the product team. The company confirmed he was terminated on the same day as his arrest. This incident is expected to intensify security concerns at leading technology firms, particularly as nations engage in intense competition to develop more advanced AI systems. OpenAI stated on the social platform X on Tuesday, "At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data." The company's security teams found the device on September 30 during a routine sweep of a company conference room. The Justice Department released details and images showing the device plugged into a USB port behind a TV in the room, disguised with toilet paper. An image provided by the Justice Department depicted a small, black device labeled "Seeed Studio." The agency indicated that OpenAI determined the device was placed around September 28. OpenAI utilized its AI models to gain further understanding of the device and to identify the individual responsible for its placement. According to the complaint, Mr. Alfozan lacked authorization to access the conference room, a space that typically hosted meetings involving "highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information." The complaint references an unnamed AI company with offices in San Francisco. The company also uncovered evidence suggesting Mr. Alfozan had plans to deploy additional recording devices to secretly capture meetings in other areas of the office. The Justice Department reported that earlier this month, OpenAI security personnel discovered a similar recording device in a bag left by Mr. Alfozan within one of its corporate buildings. A LinkedIn profile associated with Mr. Alfozan indicates he worked as an engineering lead at OpenAI, focusing on AI agent software. The profile also states he has served part-time as a partner at Raed Ventures, a Saudi Arabia-based venture capital firm, since 2025, and previously held the position of senior systems engineer at Meta Platforms. His educational background includes attendance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2011 to 2016, where he studied computer science and engineering, and the University of California, Berkeley, from 2023 to 2025 for a master’s degree in data science, according to the profile. OpenAI has notified the FBI, and the investigation is ongoing. The FBI's criminal complaint identified the device as a Seeed Xiao ESP32-S3 Sense, described as a "thumb-sized development board with a detachable camera sensor, digital microphone and microSD storage." A device matching this name and description was available for purchase for $14 on the website seeedstudio.com as of Tuesday. Lennart Koopmann, founder of the cybersecurity firm Nzyme, commented that the device allegedly used by Mr. Alfozan appears to be constructed from a "hobbyist circuit board." He highlighted features such as the integrated microphone, the capability to save recordings to a memory card, and wireless audio transmission over short distances via Wi-Fi. Mr. Koopmann noted, "That makes it cheap and easy to hide, and catching one takes either equipment that watches the airwaves for unfamiliar devices or, if its wireless is switched off, someone physically searching the rooms." Mr. Alfozan is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse in federal court in San Francisco on October 19.