OpenAI engineer charged over hidden recording device in executive room

According to the Justice Department, OpenAI staff found a small audio recording device on or about September 30, 2026. It was plugged into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room in one of OpenAI's San Francisco buildings.

The device was wrapped in toilet paper. OpenAI worked out that it had been installed around September 28, so it sat there for about two days before anyone noticed.

Here is the timeline from the complaint, as reported by The Register, Ars Technica and CBS News:

• August 17 to September 16: the engineer allegedly asks a company productivity agent about building addresses, meeting rooms, room sizes, calendars and where leadership and partner meetings happen.
• September 24 to 30: a chatbot account tied to his spouse submits prompts about building and modifying an audio recorder.
• Around September 28: the device is plugged into the conference room TV.
• September 30: OpenAI staff find it.
• October 5: a newly installed camera allegedly shows him looking behind the TV. The same day, security finds a second recorder in his bag.
• October 9: he is fired and arrested.
• October 13: first appearance in federal court.

Prosecutors identify him as Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national. The Register reports, citing court documents, that he has held US permanent residency since September 2020.

He joined OpenAI in July 2025. An OpenAI spokesperson, Nate Evans, told TechCrunch that he worked on the product team.

According to Ars Technica, the room where the device was found is restricted. Only people with special clearance are supposed to go in. Prosecutors say Alfozan had no authority to enter it or join the meetings held there.

None of this has been proven in court: a criminal complaint is an accusation, and Alfozan is presumed innocent.

An FBI affidavit by special agent Lydia Liang identifies it as a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense. That's a thumb-sized development board with a microphone and a camera. Boards like it are sold to hobbyists and builders for small projects.

Think of it like a smartphone stripped down to its brain and its ears, small enough to hide in a fist.

According to the FBI, this one had been customized to hide whatever it stored. The memory card had "a layout consistent with a potentially encrypted file system," Liang wrote, as quoted by Ars Technica.

OpenAI could not read any data from the card, even after making a forensic copy of it, The Register reports. The complaint also says the device may have been modified so it would not pass data to the TV it was plugged into.

OpenAI told TechCrunch the device had "advanced encryption, audio monitoring capabilities, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring." The company says it used its own AI models to analyze the device and trace its origins.

In real life Look at the back of the TV in your office meeting room. There is probably a USB port there that nobody has checked in months. According to prosecutors, that is all this plan needed.

The complaint leans on three kinds of evidence:

• Questions to AI tools: Alfozan allegedly used an OpenAI productivity agent to look up meeting rooms, calendars and the locations of "leadership and exec" meetings, CBS News reports.
• Chatbot prompts: an AI chatbot account linked to his spouse shared installation identifiers and IP usage with his account, according to The Register. Ars Technica reports that its prompts referenced the device's unique MAC address and asked about continuous recording, speech-triggered recording and encrypting a memory card.
• Camera footage: CCTV allegedly showed him near the executive conference room on 10 different days in September, Ars Technica reports. The room itself had no camera at the time. OpenAI added one later.

The catch: that later camera is what produced the October 5 photo. According to the complaint, it shows Alfozan in the room looking behind the TV where the device had been.

That same day, October 5, Alfozan allegedly left a bag unattended in an office printer room. Security staff checked it and found a wallet, an ID card and a second Seeed recording device, according to the Justice Department.

He reported the bag missing and picked it up from the office lost and found the next day, The Register reports. He later filed a written report listing items he said were missing: a credit card, about $500 in cash, two AirPods, a set of headphones, sunglasses and a power bank.

According to Ars Technica, the list did not mention the second recording device.

OpenAI did not fire him right away. Ars Technica reports that the company gradually cut his access to its systems while it worked with the FBI. It then timed his firing for Friday, October 9, the same day as the arrest.

In a statement, OpenAI said:

"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."

Why it matters: model weights are the trained "brain" of an AI model, and source code is how the products are built. OpenAI's statement says neither shows signs of having been taken.

The company added that its security program is designed to protect against "insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states." It called the case "an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats."

FBI Director Kash Patel said the device was meant "to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company's super intelligence technology."

US Attorney Craig Missakian called protecting Bay Area technology "a matter of national security." Semafor reports that the arrest came days before the first meeting of a White House AI task force, whose chair, Jay Clayton, cited the case.

On the other side, Alfozan's lawyer, William Pernik, told CBS News that his client is presumed innocent. He cautioned against "jumping to conclusions at this very early stage of the case when very little information is known." He also warned against politicizing the case based on factors like nationality.

What's next: the charge carries up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, plus 3 years of supervised release. CBS News reports that a detention hearing is set for October 19. Who, if anyone, the recordings were meant for has not been made public.

For more on the company, see our OpenAI coverage. For another recent case of security services worrying about AI research, read about MI5's warning to UK universities.

• Your ChatGPT data: OpenAI says it has no sign that customer data was accessed or taken.
• Office security is physical too: a spare USB port and a bit of toilet paper were enough to hide a recorder for two days, according to prosecutors.
• Your chatbot history can be evidence: in this case, prompts to an AI chatbot are a central part of the FBI's complaint.