Saudi engineer accused of secretly planting a recording device in one of "OpenAI" offices

Federal prosecutors have charged a Saudi national with secretly planting a recording device in an office of OpenAI in California.

The federal indictment alleges that A.F., who worked as an engineer at the artificial intelligence company, used or attempted to use an electronic or mechanical device to intercept oral communications.

The company stated that it used its own AI models to investigate the incident and determine that an employee had planted the device.

Prosecutors said the device, which was wrapped in paper towels, was found attached to a USB port behind a television in a meeting room reserved for executives.

OpenAI, the company behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, said there was no indication that source code, model weights, or customer data were accessed or stolen during the incident, and confirmed that the employee in question had been terminated.

According to the complaint, the defendant “allegedly concealed a secret recording device inside the executive meeting room at his workplace to surreptitiously capture sensitive conversations,” according to a statement from Kash Patel, an official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Patel noted that the alleged purpose was to obtain information related to the company’s AI product.

Prosecutors stated that A.F. had been working as an engineer at OpenAI since July 2025.