SAN FRANCISCO: A Saudi employee of OpenAI was arrested after an investigation found that they had secretly planted a recording device in one of its San Francisco offices, the tech company and federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.

"We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices" and "referred the matter to the FBI," OpenAI told AFP in a statement.

OpenAI's security team found the device late last month, and the employee, a Saudi national, was arrested on Oct 9, the US Justice Department said.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old engineer, had worked for OpenAI since July 2025 and allegedly wrapped a USB device in toilet paper and inserted it into a television located in an "executive conference room", according to a Justice Department statement.