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Man Accused of Bugging OpenAI Said Elon Musk Was His Role Model

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Man Accused of Bugging OpenAI Said Elon Musk Was His Role Model

Abdulrahman Alfozan seemed to be something of a rising star in Silicon Valley. Identified as one of the few Saudi Arabian nationals working in Silicon Valley and perhaps the only one at OpenAI, he reportedly shmoozed with top Saudi officials and was even recently set to give a speech at Stanford, according to the Financial Times. In an interview, he had identified Elon Musk as his role model, and it seemed like he could have the chops to chart a similar path as his idol.

For the foreseeable future, the thing that he’ll have most in common with Musk is regularly speaking with lawyers.

Alfozan is accused of being the source of a hidden recording device that an OpenAI security team discovered in its offices last month. According to the Department of Justice, the 35-year-old was arrested on October 9 after being tied to the suspected bugging scheme and made his first appearance in federal court on Wednesday.

According to the account of the drama the DOJ published, Alfozan allegedly popped a small recording device into the USB port of a TV in an OpenAI conference room where meetings that involve “highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, and business-development opportunities,” take place.

That device—which was described as being “concealed in toilet paper,” as if that somehow makes it less conspicuous when plugged into a TV—was believed to be planted by Alfozan on or about September 28. Security footage from around that time reportedly shows the engineer hanging around the conference room despite having no business there.


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