Entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa spotted wearing a Richard Mille

Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese e-commerce billionaire and orbital traveler, was recently photographed wearing a Richard Mille RM27-03 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal, a piece limited to just 50 examples worldwide. For a man who has booked a seat around the Moon aboard a SpaceX Starship, the choice of timepiece tracks: the RM27-03 is itself an exercise in pushing engineering to its absolute frontier.

Richard Mille developed the RM27-03 in close collaboration with Rafael Nadal, the goal being a tourbillon wristwatch that could withstand the punishment of professional tennis — specifically, the violent shock loads transmitted through the wrist at ball impact. The movement's baseplate and bridges are machined entirely from North Thin Ply Technology carbon, a composite developed for Formula 1 and aerospace applications, delivering exceptional stiffness at near-negligible weight. The caliber RM27-03 manual-winding tourbillon movement is suspended inside the case by a single cable tensioned to 6 kilograms, a system designed to absorb and dissipate shock energy rather than transmit it to the gear train. The result is a movement certified resistant to 10,000 Gs — a figure that reads more like a military specification than a watchmaking one.

The case itself measures 47.77 mm × 39.74 mm in the brand's signature tonneau form, constructed from layered NTPT carbon that produces the distinctive marbled grain visible across every unique example. Total weight sits at approximately 19 grams on the wrist — extraordinary for a grand complication. The skeletonized dial leaves the tourbillon carriage fully exposed, suspended mid-air in a composition that is as much kinetic sculpture as instrument.

For collectors, the RM27-03 sits at the apex of Richard Mille's sporting collaboration pieces. The 50-piece production ceiling, combined with Nadal's genuine involvement in the development process and the legitimate engineering achievements underpinning the watch, gives it a credibility that rarer but less purposeful pieces often lack. Maezawa, who has publicly collected across categories from art to aerospace, adds the RM27-03 to a personal collection that reflects an appetite for objects where extreme cost and extreme capability coincide.

With a UK list price of approximately £560,000, the Richard Mille RM27-03 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal was never positioned for volume. On the secondary market, confirmed transactions for intact examples have exceeded the retail figure substantially, reflecting both scarcity and sustained collector demand for the Nadal collaboration lineage.