The Department of Justice of the United States reported this Tuesday the arrest of a Saudi citizen suspected of having hidden a listening device in one of OpenAI's offices in San Francisco. The company has already proceeded to dismiss what until then was one of its employees.
The arrested is Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35 years old, who appeared this Tuesday for the first time before a federal court after being arrested last Friday. He is accused of "using or attempting to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications" in the American technology company, according to the Department in an official statement.
According to the version offered by the authorities, the suspect "hid a covert recording device in the executive meeting room of his company to secretly capture confidential communications about superintelligence technology -- the name by which President Donald Trump refers to artificial intelligence -- of the company," according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
The incident dates back to late September, when OpenAI staff located a camouflaged audio recording device in a USB port located at the back of a television in a meeting room at the firm's facilities in California. The device, whose content was encrypted, had been previously hidden among toilet paper and placed in that same month.
Alfozan had been working as an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025 and, if ultimately found guilty, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, followed by another three years of supervised release, in addition to a fine of $250,000 (more than €220,000).
The company has emphasized that, to date, it has no "indications that this person has improperly accessed or taken the weights of the models, the source code, or the customer data."
In a statement released on its social media, the company has confirmed the termination of the contract of the arrested, while the FBI keeps the investigation into what happened open.
At the same time, OpenAI has expressed its gratitude to "the agents and prosecutors who acted quickly" in the arrest of Alfozan, after referring the case to the FBI after identifying the suspect employee with the help of its own "models".
"Our security program is designed to protect us against a wide range of malicious actors, from internal risks to cybercriminals or nation-states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats," the company has defended, before emphasizing that it takes "the protection of (its) technology, data, and personnel very seriously."