FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of placing recording device in company conference room

An OpenAI engineer has been charged with secretly installing a recording device inside a conference room in what officials said was an effort to capture sensitive conversations about the company’s technology.

The employee, identified as a 35-year-old Saudi national named Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested on Friday, October, 9,  a week after the ChatGPT maker discovered an audio recording device hidden inside a company conference room, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco.

The complaint did not identify the company, but the company confirmed in a separate statement that it had discovered a “sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices,” reported the finding to the FBI, and fired the employee.

“We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work,” an OpenAI spokesperson 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,” the statement said.

The complaint does not detail what Alfozan might have wanted to do with any captured communications, but the company said the device was sophisticated, designed to evade detection and featured advanced encryption and audio monitoring capabilities.

OpenAI also said it had evidence the employee planned to place other listening devices throughout other parts of the office building for the purpose of recording meetings.

“This alleged attempt by a Saudi national to steal sensitive communications from OpenAI was taken extremely seriously. Theft of intellectual property involving cutting-edge super intelligence technology poses a serious threat to our national security,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on X.