Grand jury indicts former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging SF office
OpenAI employees walk between buildings at OpenAI headquarters on Oct. 20, 2026, in San Francisco.
A federal grand jury charged a former OpenAI engineer on Tuesday over claims that he secretly placed a recording device in an executive meeting room last month. The case concerns an alleged bugging of the room.
The charges were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Abdulrahman Alfozan is charged with one count of secretly recording spoken conversations related to OpenAI's business. If convicted, he would have to give up any audio or video recording devices he had while working at OpenAI's San Francisco office. He could also face up to five years in prison.
William Pernick, Alfozan's lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment.
Alfozan, 35, lives in Millbrae. He worked as an engineering lead at OpenAI from September 2025 until Oct. 9. On that day, OpenAI fired him and the FBI arrested him.
According to a court statement filed before OpenAI employee Abdulrahman Alfozan was arrested, staff found a recording device wrapped in toilet paper in the USB port of a TV in an executive meeting room.
According to a statement filed the day before Alfozan's arrest, OpenAI staff found a recording device on or around Sept. 30. It was wrapped in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port on a TV in an executive meeting room. The statement said Alfozan was not allowed to enter the room. Meetings there often included discussions of highly secret technical, business and planning information.
On Oct. 5, security video allegedly showed Alfozan looking behind the same TV. That day, OpenAI security staff searched his bag and found another recording device, according to the criminal complaint. Authorities also said that in the weeks before the suspected recording, Alfozan asked a "productivity agent" about the meeting room's schedule and where certain meetings would take place. A chatbot account linked to his wife also reportedly included questions about how to build an audio recorder and encrypt a memory card.
Security video allegedly showed OpenAI employee Abdulrahman Alfozan looking behind a TV on Oct. 5. Staff had found a recording device wrapped in toilet paper in a USB port on the TV in an executive meeting room.
Alfozan is a Saudi Arabian citizen and is being held in jail without bail, according to CNBC. The Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles offered to pay the full bail amount, but a San Francisco judge rejected its request. The judge called Alfozan a "significant" risk of fleeing. The New York Times reported last week that the Saudi government paid for his wife and children to leave the United States.
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