Federal prosecutors in the US have charged a former OpenAI engineer with using or trying to use a device to intercept oral communications, after a hidden audio recorder turned up in an executive conference room at OpenAI in San Francisco. The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California names him as Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, who was arrested on October 9th.
According to the complaint, OpenAI staff found the device around September 30th, plugged into a USB port on the back of a TV and concealed in toilet paper, with its contents encrypted.
Prosecutors say Alfozan, who had worked at OpenAI as an engineer since July 2025, appeared near the room on several dates but had no authority to enter it or join its meetings. According to the complaint, those meetings often covered confidential research, product plans and government engagements.
The complaint alleges that, before September 28th, Alfozan used a productivity tool to make several inquiries about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms and calendars, and the locations of “leadership and exec” meetings.
On October 5th, prosecutors say, Alfozan entered the room and appeared to look behind the TV. That same day, according to the complaint, security staff opened a bag he’d left in another room and found his wallet, his ID and a second, similar recording device.
OpenAI says in a post on X that it used its models “to understand the device and where it had come from,” and that it referred the matter to the FBI and fired the employee. It has “no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data,” the company says.
William Pernik, Alfozan’s lawyer, tells CBS News that his client is presumed innocent, and cautions against “jumping to conclusions at this very early stage of the case when very little information is known.”
Alfozan is in federal custody. His detention hearing is set for October 19th before US Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse, and the charge carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 (about Php 15.7 million) fine.
