OpenAI Engineer Allegedly Used a Chatbot to Plan a Covert Bug in Exec Meeting Room
emmanuelvivier · x · 2026-10-15
A federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday alleges that Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old OpenAI engineer, hid an audio recording device inside a piece of toilet paper behind a monitor in an executive conference room at OpenAI's San Francisco office.
Prosecutors say he spent weeks querying a "productivity agent" and an AI chatbot to plan the surveillance, used an internal OpenAI tool to check meetings booked in the targeted room, and apparently used a chatbot account tied to his spouse to ask technical questions about building a covert recorder. OpenAI's security team also found a second recording device in his bag. Alfozan appeared in federal court on one charge of intercepting oral communications, facing up to five years in prison. He joined OpenAI in July 2025 and was fired last Friday to coincide with his arrest. FBI director Kash Patel said he aimed to secretly capture sensitive company communications.
Related event: OpenAI engineer arrested for planting listening device in office(99 posts)→
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