Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi citizen and OpenAI employee, has been arrested over accusations that he hid a recording device at the company's offices in San Francisco.
The Justice Department said Mr Alfozan hid the device – a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3, manufactured by a company in China – behind a television in a conference room. The device has a “thumb-sized development board with a detachable camera sensor, digital microphone and micro-SD storage”, the Justice Department said.
Mr Alfozan had started working at OpenAI in July last year and worked on its product team. He was fired on the same day as his arrest, the company said. California lawyer William Pernik said that he is still waiting to see what other evidence the government has against his client, and that he plans on presenting all appropriate defences in court.
“Like countless Americans, Mr Alfozan came to this country years ago as a young person with a dream,” Mr Pernik told The National via email. “These allegations appear wholly out of character for him, and we will relentlessly investigate all evidence produced by the government in this case to understand what actually happened, who was responsible, and any possible reasons why.”
He emphasised that his client has been charged with breaching a federal recording statute, not stealing trade secrets or working as a foreign agent. “There is no evidence to suggest otherwise at this time that has been shared with us,” he said.
Mr Pernik implied that his client is already facing bias because he was not born in the US.
“It is regretful that this is the one factor that seems to have caught the most attention,” he wrote. “Where someone was born is not evidence of anything and national origin is – and always should be – a protected status under our system of laws.”
Who is Abdulrahman Alfozan?
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr Alfozan has lived in California since 2015 and started working at OpenAI as a lead engineer in 2025. Before his years in California, he was an intern at Meta, Microsoft and SAP.
Mr Alfozan received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 2016 and then earned his master's degree in 2025 from the University of California-Berkeley.
According to the Justice Department, he was arrested on October 9 and charged with using an electronic, mechanical or other device to intercept oral communications. He is scheduled to appear in court on October 19 for a detention hearing.
“If convicted, Alfozan faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release,” a press release from the Justice Department reads.
OpenAI has faced a barrage of criticism from employees amid allegations that it has disregarded the need for regulations when developing AI technology. American AI companies such as OpenAI also face stiff competition from China, as Washington and Beijing vie for dominance in the technology race. Companies have gone to great lengths to protect intellectual property and trade secrets.
