Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly wore a rare $900,000 watch as he announced his company’s decision to end its long-standing fact-checking practice on its social media platforms.
Zuckerberg matched his comparatively simple black short-sleeved shirt with one of Swiss watchmaker Greubel Forsey’s ultra-rare Hand Made 1 Tourbillon pieces. According to Watchpro, just three models are made by hand per year, each of which takes about 6,000 hours to assemble. Before taxes, the watch retails for about $895,000.
It’s another sign of what some have called the longtime CEO’s stylistic evolution, and others deemed a midlife crisis.
Zuckerberg, who for years was known for wearing the same set of gray shirts and dark gray hoodies, has been designing his own shirts printed with classical sayings. At a Meta keynote last fall, his boxy, black tee-shirt read “aut Zuck, aut nihil,” or a play on the Latin phrase that roughly translates into “either a Caesar or nothing.”
Read more: Mark Zuckerberg and Meta go all-in on Trump
Last March, Zuckerberg was recorded admiring Indian billionaire Anant Ambani’s roughly $1 million watch, reportedly an RMS-10 Tourbillon Koi Fish. In September, he was spotted wearing a Patek Philippe Minute Repeater Skeleton 5303R in 18k rose gold, which launched in 202 with a $720,000 retail price but currently goes for about $1.2 million.
He has also publicly worn a De Bethune DB25 Starry Varius, which goes for between $90,000 and $95,700, and an F.P. Journe Chronomètre Souverain Havana, which can cost about $80,000.
When asked by Bloomberg News about Zuckerberg’s latest display of his appreciation for watchmaking, Greubel Forsey CEO Michel Nydegger said, “It’s a pleasure to see someone who has played such a pivotal role in shaping the modern digital landscape and lifestyle show true appreciation for the most traditional approach to fine watchmaking today.”
As for Meta’s announced changes, which appeared to be an attempt to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump, the company said it would phase out its partnerships with dozens of independent fact-checking companies. Their work will be replaced with community-based fact-checking in the fashion of Community Notes on Elon Musk’s X, which has had mixed results.
Content moderation policies surrounding immigration and gender — both issues that were widely seen as contributing to the GOP’s electoral sweep in November — will be simplified. Political posts will be amplified. Meta’s trust and safety team will be moved from liberal California to conservative Texas to address bias concerns, Zuckerberg said in the video posted by Meta.
Meta’s current approach to moderation on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads “reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” he said.