Saudi-born engineer accused of bugging OpenAI’s headquarters
by Matt Delaney · The Washington TimesFederal authorities said they arrested and charged a Saudi-born engineer at OpenAI after he was accused of secretly planting a recording device inside the tech giant’s headquarters to capture prized information about the company.
The Department of Justice said Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, was arrested last week and had his initial court appearance Tuesday on charges of using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical or other device to intercept oral communications. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors did not allege what Mr. Alfozan intended to do with the covert audio recordings, but OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, called the device “sophisticated” and said its contents were encrypted.
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“This alleged attempt by a Saudi national to steal sensitive communications from OpenAI was taken extremely seriously,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “Theft of intellectual property involving cutting-edge super intelligence technology poses a serious threat to our national security.”
The complaint said Mr. Alfozan, who had been working at OpenAI since July 2025, was caught bugging the firm’s executive conference room in its San Francisco office beginning on Sept. 28.
Closed-circuit cameras observed the suspect going near the meeting room several times in the days before the device was found, despite not being permitted to take part in those discussions, prosecutors said. Executive meetings often focus on confidential technical, commercial and strategic information about OpenAI, including proprietary research.
Before Sept. 28, Mr. Alfozan is accused of using a productivity tool to compile information about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars, the locations of where company leaders and executives meet and external partner meetings.
Court documents said a chatbot linked to Mr. Alfozan’s spouse also submitted several prompts between Sept. 24 and Sept. 30 about how to build and install a continuous recording device that could be encrypted and accessed remotely.
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Still frames from the CCTV cameras appeared to show Mr. Alfozan looking behind the executive conference room’s television to check on the recording device on Oct. 5.
That same day, prosecutors said OpenAI security investigated a bag left unattended by Mr. Alfozan and found a second recording device that was similar to the one found in the conference room.
“At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated,” OpenAI said in a statement.
Mr. Alfozan is due back in court Oct. 19.
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Matt Delaney
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