Watch Paparazzi

Entrepreneur Larry Ellison spotted wearing Richard Mille

Larry Ellison, the co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corporation and one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet, was recently spotted wearing a Richard Mille RM005 — a timepiece that sits at the very heart of the brand's founding mythology and continues to command serious attention from collectors more than two decades after its introduction.

The Richard Mille RM005 debuted in the early 2000s as the house's first ambassador collaboration piece, developed alongside Rafael Nadal to create a watch capable of surviving the brutal mechanical stresses of professional tennis. The result was a manual-winding tourbillon caliber — the RM005 movement — built on a grade 5 titanium baseplate and bridges with a skeletonized architecture that reveals every component in its kinetic entirety. The case itself, machined from titanium, weighs almost nothing on the wrist, a deliberate engineering priority that Richard Mille has pursued across its entire catalog since day one.

From a collector standpoint, the RM005 is foundational. It represents the purest distillation of what Richard Mille set out to achieve: Formula 1-inspired materials science applied to fine watchmaking, with a tourbillon at the center. Early references in good condition are increasingly difficult to source, and the model retains strong desirability precisely because of its historical significance within the brand's lineage. It is not a complicated watch in terms of complications, but the execution of the tourbillon in such a radically lightweight package remains technically impressive.

Ellison's choice is characteristically on-brand for the man. A lifelong competitive sailor who has bankrolled multiple America's Cup campaigns and built one of the world's most consequential technology companies, Ellison gravitates toward objects where engineering performance is the point. The Richard Mille RM005 is exactly that kind of object — a watch that could be described as jewelry only in the loosest sense, and is better understood as a precision mechanical instrument worn on the wrist.

On the secondary market, the Richard Mille RM005 currently trades around $124,000, reflecting steady collector demand for early RM references. Official retail pricing through authorized dealers sits at a similar level, though availability remains constrained — as is typical across the Richard Mille catalog.