OpenAI said Tuesday that the FBI had arrested one of its employees after the company discovered a concealed recording device in an office conference room and traced it to the worker.
The device was found on September 30 during a security sweep of a conference room, according to OpenAI. The company said it had been designed to avoid detection, used advanced encryption and could transfer data without attracting attention.
Investigators also discovered that the employee had planned to install additional recording devices in sensitive areas of the artificial intelligence company’s offices to capture meetings, OpenAI said.
The US Department of Justice identified the employee as Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi Arabian national. Alfozan joined OpenAI’s product team as an engineer in July 2025 and was dismissed on Friday, the same day he was arrested, the company said.
According to the Justice Department, the device was connected to a USB port on the back of a television inside an OpenAI building in San Francisco.
OpenAI said it had used its most advanced artificial intelligence models to assist investigators in analysing copies of the data stored on the device and identifying changes made to it.
“At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code or customer data,” the company said in a statement.
A lawyer for Alfozan, William Pernik, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI said it coordinated the timing of the employee’s dismissal with the FBI to avoid interfering with the investigation. The company gradually restricted his access to its systems and offices before suspending his access, placing him on leave and collecting his company equipment.
The case comes amid continuing concerns over the security of leading artificial intelligence developers, whose models, research and technical systems are among the technology industry’s most closely protected assets.
As AI capabilities advance rapidly, companies developing the technology face growing pressure to protect sensitive information from internal threats, cybercriminals and foreign governments. The industry is also facing wider debate over the safety of increasingly powerful AI systems, with some prominent executives warning that rapid development could create risks if the technology falls into the wrong hands.
OpenAI said protecting its technology was “a matter of national importance”. It added that its security programme was designed to defend against threats from insiders, cybercriminals and nation-states.
The company did not indicate that the incident had resulted in unauthorised access to its core AI models, source code or customer information. The investigation remains focused on the employee and the recording device, according to the company’s statement.
