OpenAI employee arrested over office bugging

The FBI on Tuesday said it arrested an OpenAI employee who was fired after allegedly bugging the startup’s office.

The evidence against Abdulrahman Alfozan — a Saudi national who holds ties to Riyadh’s business elite — included chatbot logs about how to install recording devices, authorities said, rekindling fears over AI-powered crimes at a moment of heightened sensitivity over tech trade secrets.

“The FBI’s quick work and public rollout of the arrest shows how high the stakes are for the US government and frontier labs,” Semafor’s Rohan Goswami wrote.

The FBI’s announcement comes as the White House’s AI task force prepares for its first meeting Thursday; the group’s chair said the case proved why “the Super Intelligence Force is so important.”