An engineer at OpenAI allegedly hid an audio recording machine in a chunk of bathroom paper and connected it behind a monitor inside an govt convention room at one of many firm’s San Francisco places of work, in response to a prison criticism unsealed on Tuesday.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, who federal prosecutors describe as a 35-year-old Saudi Arabian nationwide and US everlasting resident, allegedly spent a number of weeks querying an unspecified “productiveness agent” and an “AI chatbot” to plan his alleged surveillance operation. He used an inner OpenAI instrument to ask about conferences scheduled within the focused convention room.
He additionally seems to have used a chatbot account related along with his partner to ask varied technical questions on establishing a covert audio recording machine, in response to prosecutors and the court docket submitting.
OpenAI’s safety group additionally allegedly discovered an extra recording machine that had not been put in in Alfozan’s bag on the workplace.
Alfozan couldn’t be instantly reached for remark. He made an preliminary look in US district court docket in San Francisco on Tuesday on one cost of “use of an digital, mechanical, or different machine to intercept oral communications.” If convicted, Alfozan faces as much as 5 years in jail. He joined OpenAI in July 2025 and was fired final Friday to coincide along with his arrest.
Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel mentioned in a statement that Alfozan aimed “to secretly seize delicate communications in regards to the firm’s tremendous intelligence expertise,” however prosecutors nor OpenAI have supplied any data thus far a few potential motive.
“Presently, now we have no indications of this particular person inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating mannequin weights, supply code, or buyer information,” OpenAI mentioned in a statement on X. “We take defending our expertise, information, and other people severely, and as a matter of nationwide significance.”
OpenAI found the bug—which was allegedly “hid in bathroom paper” and “inserted right into a USB port on the again of a tv” within the convention room—on September 30 throughout a countersurveillance sweep.
Alfozan beforehand labored at a cargo logistics startup and at Meta, in response to a purported LinkedIn profile for him. In a recent podcast interview, Alfozan mentioned he was additionally a part of a bunch of Saudi engineers in Silicon Valley who supplied consulting services to Saudi organizations.
The LinkedIn profile lists Alfozan as a part-time “enterprise associate” at RAED Ventures, a enterprise capital agency based mostly in Saudi Arabia. Neither RAED Ventures nor Meta instantly responded to WIRED’s request for remark.