GoKawiilOpenAI employee charged with hiding recording device in executive conference room
Federal prosecutors have charged Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old OpenAI engineer hired in July 2025, with planting a hidden recording device in an executive conference room at the company's San Francisco headquarters. OpenAI says it discovered the device on September 30 plugged into a TV's USB port and concealed with toilet paper, then used its own AI models to trace it to Alfozan before alerting the FBI and firing him. Prosecutors allege he researched OpenAI's facilities and may have used a chatbot to learn how to build, hide and encrypt data from a recording device.