A Saudi national employed as an engineer at OpenAI has been arrested and charged with planting a hidden audio recording device inside the company’s executive conference room in San Francisco. Federal prosecutors are treating the case as a matter of national security, though they have not accused the suspect of working on behalf of the Saudi government or any other foreign power.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, had worked as an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025. He was arrested Friday and charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. He made his first appearance in federal court on Tuesday and was ordered held in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for October 19.
According to the federal complaint, OpenAI personnel found a hidden recording device on September 30 during a security sweep. The device was inserted into a USB port on the back of a television inside an executive conference room at one of the company’s San Francisco buildings. It had been concealed in toilet paper and was installed around September 28. Its contents were encrypted.
The conference room is used by senior OpenAI executives to discuss research, product planning, and other confidential company matters. Prosecutors allege Alfozan was not authorized to be in that room, let alone record inside it.
Before the device was found, prosecutors say Alfozan searched OpenAI’s internal systems for information on conference rooms, calendars, executive meetings, and building locations. Investigators later found a second recording device in a bag Alfozan had left behind at the company’s offices. Alfozan was also captured on OpenAI’s CCTV cameras.
OpenAI said it contacted the FBI immediately after discovering the device and said it was grateful for the quick arrest that followed.
U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian underscored how seriously federal authorities are treating the case.
“For us it is a matter of national security,” Missakian said.
The case was first reported Tuesday by Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin.
