FBI weighs an economic-espionage charge against a former OpenAI engineer already accused of illegal recording at the company's office
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
The case of the bug in OpenAI's office could turn into a trade-secret theft case, but for now it is only the checking of a theory.
According to The Wall Street Journal, citing a law-enforcement official, the FBI is considering charging Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi citizen and former OpenAI engineer, with economic espionage. Investigators are checking whether he may have stolen company information in order to hand it to the Saudi authorities later, even if he received no such instructions from them. He is currently charged with illegally recording conversations: investigators say he hid a device with a microphone behind a TV in OpenAI's executive meeting room; the court denied him bail. The official stresses that the inquiry may not lead to new charges; according to the defense lawyer (as relayed by IBTimes), he has received no information about additional charges.
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