OpenAI employee arrested after recording device found in office

OpenAI says it discovered a hidden recording device in one of its offices and reported it to the FBI; an employee was arrested and subsequently fired. The U.S. Department of Justice said Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national, was arrested on October 9, suspected of inserting an encrypted recording device hidden in toilet paper into a television in an executive meeting room at the San Francisco headquarters on September 28. The FBI said a security sweep two days later found the device; the indictment states he repeatedly asked a chatbot questions about OpenAI internal details, meeting rooms, and executive locations, and his spouse also searched for how to build, encrypt, and remotely access recording devices; investigators also found a second identical device in a bag he left behind. OpenAI said there is currently no indication that this person accessed or leaked model weights, source code, or customer data, and the investigation is ongoing.