An OpenAI Employee Allegedly Used a Chatbot to Help Plant a Recording Device at the Office
Prosecutors charged an OpenAI engineer with planting a covert recorder in an executive conference room.
A federal complaint alleges OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan planted a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense recorder, concealed in toilet paper, in an executive-only San Francisco conference room no later than about September 28, 2026. Prosecutors say he used an internal productivity agent and a chatbot, including an account tied to his spouse, to plan the device and check room bookings. OpenAI found the encrypted device on September 30 and a second device in his bag, then notified the FBI. The company says it has no indication he accessed model weights, source code, or customer data. He was fired, appeared in court on one interception charge, and faces up to five years.
- Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national and OpenAI engineer, faces one interception charge.
- Prosecutors say he hid a Seeed ESP32 recorder behind a conference-room monitor.
- He allegedly used an internal agent and a chatbot to plan the surveillance.
- OpenAI says there is no sign of stolen weights, source code, or customer data.
- He was fired Friday and faces up to five years if convicted.
- Vendors
- Seeed
- Products
- Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense
- Victims
- OpenAI
- Organizations
- OpenAIFBIRAED VenturesMeta
- Countries
- Saudi ArabiaUnited States
From the original article
3 min read at wired.com
Chatbot prompts reveal the engineer’s alleged efforts to set up a covert listening device days before one was found in a meeting room used by high-level executives.
By Paresh Dave, Maddy Varner, Caroline Haskins · wired.com
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