OpenAI’s office spy case has Google and Anthropic on alert too
A listening device worth about $13, hidden behind a TV in an OpenAI executive conference room, has become a warning for the entire AI industry. Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national and US permanent resident, joined OpenAI as an engineer in July 2025. OpenAI found the device during a security sweep on September 30 and says it used its own models to trace it to the employee. The FBI arrested him on October 9. OpenAI and Anthropic are each expected to seek valuations of over $1 trillion when they go public. In 2022, a former Twitter employee was jailed for spying for Saudi Arabia.
Employees at Google and Anthropic have received similar warnings about spies, honey traps and strangers who ask too many questions, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI says it has no sign of him accessing model weights, source code or customer data. His lawyer called the allegations “wholly out of character”, adding that his client is not charged with stealing trade secrets. Employees are told not to wear company-branded clothing outside office, to use privacy screen protectors on public transport and to wipe whiteboards after meetings in case cleaning staff are compromised. Some sessions cover “honey pots”, where agents use romance to get close to a target. Phil Venables, former security chief at Google Cloud, told WSJ that the huge cost of training foundation models makes them even more valuable intellectual property. “Catching one guy means there are half a dozen out there,” Randy Watt, president of security consultancy SRW, told the publication.
The ChatGPT maker’s case against a former engineer, now charged by US federal prosecutors, shows how valuable AI secrets have become and how cheaply someone can try to reach them. OpenAI is also not alone in bracing for this. Security experts quoted in the report believe this arrest is unlikely to be the last. Prosecutors allege he wrapped a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense, a thumb-sized board with a microphone and camera, in toilet paper and plugged it into a USB port behind the TV. Only executives and their assistants could book the room. It hosted leadership meetings, product sessions and briefings with government officials. He faces one charge of intercepting oral communications, which carries up to five years in prison. As per WSJ, OpenAI’s internal training has been preparing staff for moments like this. One scenario describes a stranger at a San Francisco playground who befriends an employee there with their child, makes small talk and slowly steers it toward work. The stranger is a spy. Staff at Google and Anthropic have been briefed along similar lines. The money explains the nerves. Rapid hiring adds to the risk. AI labs have added thousands of people in a short time, and engineers hop between rivals often. Aviv Nahum, CEO of insider-risk startup Above Security, questioned whether security checks are keeping pace with that growth. The industry has been here before. In January, a former Google engineer was convicted of stealing AI trade secrets for China. OpenAI caught its device within days of it being planted. For Google, Anthropic and every other lab chasing a trillion-dollar valuation, the bigger worry is what their own sweeps have not found yet. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.