Mark Zuckerberg is a fan of showing off prototypes — and apparently buying them too.
The Meta CEO has an extensive collection of watches, ranging from a flashy yellow-gold Rolex to a simple $120 Casio. Zuckerberg also has at least two timepieces from Swiss watchmaker Greubel Forsey, one of which is a prototype containing the watchmaker’s new complication.
Speaking with Drip, Zuckerberg flashed his Nano Foudroyante, a watch with a reported retail price of 465,000 francs — roughly $585,000 in today’s dollars.
“They said that if I wanted, I could get one of the early ones that they made,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m more of a work-in-progress, builder type of person, so I actually just asked them if I could get the prototype.”
“I don’t know if they normally do that, but they figured out how to do that for me,” he added.
The Nano Foudroyante is Greubel Forsey’s 10th “Fundamental Invention,” and was limited to only 22 timepieces in its release.
In watchmaking, a “foudroyante” denotes a subdial that measures fractions of a second. For Greubel Forsey, this means that one hand completes one revolution per second, dividing the second into six distinct beats. You can see the complication up close in the video below.
The company also says the watch is more energy efficient. While a traditional foudroyante consumes 30 microjoules per jump, the Nano Foudroyante consumes only 16 nanojoules, according to Greubel Forsey.
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Zuckerberg owns at least one other Greubel Forsey watch: a $900,000 Hand Made 1. Zuckerberg wore the timepiece in his video announcing the end of Meta’s US fact-checking partnerships.
Unlike competitors Apple and Google, Meta has not released a smartwatch to compete for wrist space with traditional timepieces. The company’s hardware push has looked up toward the eyes, where Meta has released a variety of smart glasses, including the new $800 Ray-Ban Display Glasses.
The company is launching a wrist device alongside the glasses, though it doesn’t tell the time.
When Zuckerberg announced the new AI glasses on stage, both of his wrists were occupied: one with his watch, the other with Meta’s neural band, which controls the glasses.
