Watch Paparazzi

Entrepreneur Mate Rimac spotted wearing Jacob & Co

The sighting occurred at a black-tie automotive ceremony where Mate Rimac, CEO of Bugatti Rimac, was photographed pointing toward the camera with the unmistakable emerald-green glow of a Jacob & Co Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon catching the event lighting on his wrist. Few watches in the world command a second look the way this one does — the case alone reads less like a timepiece and more like a jewel-encased sculpture of automotive engineering.

The Jacob & Co Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon is one of the most mechanically audacious watches ever brought to market. The movement — developed in collaboration between Jacob & Co's manufacture and Bugatti's engineering team — contains a miniaturized W16 engine architecture. Sixteen individual pistons, connected to a functioning crankshaft, animate in real time as the mainspring unwinds. The tourbillon sits at the apex of the case, positioned where a Chiron's engine bay would logically peak. Case dimensions run approximately 54mm × 44mm, and the entire structure is carved from a single block of sapphire crystal — in this instance, colored green through a technically demanding chromium-doping process during crystal growth.

This specific green colorway is believed to be a pièce unique or part of an ultra-limited run of fewer than five examples. The standard Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon retails in black or smoked sapphire for approximately $580,000; the emerald green sapphire variant carries a list price of $1.5 million, reflecting both the rarity of the colored sapphire and the bespoke finishing on the movement bridges and plates.

Rimac's connection to the watch is deeper than celebrity endorsement. As the driving force behind Bugatti Rimac — the joint venture that now controls the Bugatti brand — wearing this watch is an act of institutional ownership as much as personal taste. Jacob & Co has cultivated a tight relationship with Bugatti Rimac, and Rimac wearing the piece at high-visibility events serves as organic marketing at its most credible.

On the secondary market, colored sapphire Jacob & Co Bugatti references rarely surface publicly — when they do, auction estimates have exceeded $2 million. For collectors, this watch sits at the intersection of horology and automotive art in a way that very few references in history have achieved. Rimac's wrist placement of this pièce unique at a formal gala is precisely the kind of context the watch was built for.