OpenAI engineer arrested, accused of planting listening device inside company's office

OpenAI said on Tuesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had arrested one ‌of its employees in connection with a sophisticated listening device found hidden in one of the company's offices.

Tech firm says FBI now investigating and an arrest has been made

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Oct 13, 2026 5:05 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

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OpenAI said on Tuesday that the FBI had arrested one ‌of its employees in connection with a sophisticated listening device found hidden in one of the company's offices.

The ChatGPT maker ​had used its internal AI ​models to identify the individual responsible for planting the device and to trace ​its origins, it said in an ⁠X post.

"At this ⁠time, we ‌have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated," ⁠according to the AI company.

OpenAI said its security program is designed to protect against a wide range of ‌threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help ​address these sophisticated security threats.

The company said it referred the matter to the FBI, which ‌is continuing to investigate. The FBI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for more details.

WATCH | A call for global safeguards for AI:

OpenAI CEO tells world leaders to help guide AI's future

September 23|

Duration

1:37

Top AI leaders briefed the UN Security Council this week on the dangers of artificial intelligence. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, called for global safeguards while leaving standards up to individual governments. U.S. President Donald Trump told the UN that he rejects AI regulation.

Earlier this year, a Texas man was charged with throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam ​Altman and attempting to set fire to the AI firm's headquarters.

OpenAI faces scrutiny over security incidents ⁠involving its AI systems. Reuters and other media outlets reported recently that the company ⁠had told investors its annualized revenue for September was almost $50 billion US, a drop ⁠from ⁠what it signaled earlier.

• OpenAI scraps release of new AI model over safety concerns

• OpenAI flags 6 new examples of 'concerning' AI behaviour

OpenAI said on ​Friday it fired three researchers after an investigation found they had violated company policies ​on handling sensitive information.

The ⁠statement came after the researchers, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, published a letter detailing the circumstances of their dismissal and arguing that the abrupt firings could create uncertainty among employees and undermine a culture that had allowed researchers to raise safety ⁠concerns.