A Saudi national employee who allegedly planted an illegal listening device in an executive meeting room at OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has been brought before a U.S. federal court.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on the 13th (local time) that 35-year-old Saudi engineer Abdulrahman Al-Fozan, who was arrested on charges of attempting to eavesdrop by hiding an illegal recording device in OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters office, appeared in federal court.

Al-Fozan, who joined the company as an engineer in July of last year, is accused of entering an executive meeting room—which he had no authorization to enter or attend meetings in—and secretly installing an audio recording device wrapped in tissue paper into the USB port on the back of a TV.

The meeting room in question was a space where OpenAI's core secrets and technological strategies, such as exclusive research, new product plans, and cooperation measures with the government, were discussed. The bug was discovered by an internal employee on September 30.

OpenAI also confirmed that the device, hidden in tissue paper and plugged into the USB port, was installed around September 28 and that its contents were encrypted.

U.S. investigative authorities tracked Al-Fozan's movements as he appeared near the executive meeting room over several days through closed-circuit television (CCTV) analysis inside the building, and also found additional recording devices in his bag before emergency arresting him on October 9.

If convicted, Al-Fozan faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison and a fine of 250,000 dollars.

The U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence characterized this incident as an attempt to leak technology directly tied to national security and economic power, stating they will strengthen counterintelligence investigations to protect private advanced technology and intellectual property.

Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Na Hong-hee | Design by Sumin | Produced by SBS Digital News