A Saudi national and software engineer working for OpenAI in San Francisco was arrested by federal authorities after company employees found a sophisticated recording device inside one of their offices, prosecutors and company officials confirmed on Oct. 13.
The court complaint, which was unsealed Tuesday, alleges Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, concealed the device inside an executive conference room to secretly capture the company’s communications about its AI technology.
Alfozan was arrested on Oct. 9 and made his first appearance in federal court Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco.
Federal investigators claimed in court documents OpenAI found the audio recording device on Sept. 30 wrapped in toilet paper and inserted into a port on the back of a television in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco office….