Pope John Paul II, Dalai Lama, and many other leaders political and spiritual have worn Rolex, Patek, Omega or others I don't think the wearing of a Casio or a Seiko in public when the photographers are around really has much meaning or point and it actually feels a bit dishonest when some CEOs wear their cheap watches where they can be seen then in candid shots are wearing a Nautilus.
Everyone needs to chill out. Biden is not a Rolex guy, he's an Omega guy. That watch is his son's who is no longer with us.
Generally, there are fairly strict (and strictly enforced) anti-bribery laws that prohibit most any federal position from accepting, or companies/people from offering. This is, e.g., why Nixon/Agnew couldn’t accept Omega’s BAs
Government officials have the option to purchase the items at market value if they’d like. I remember years ago hearing stories of Arab leaders that would engrave Rolex’s given to Secret Service agents when they traveled to the US. One thought was that this would devalue the watches but of course that didn’t fly. If given the opportunity I would happily pay market value for a cool gift from a foreign dignitary. It makes a better story than “I bought it from Jomashop” “The gifts of past presidents are located in the National Archives or are transferred to a Presidential Library when he retires. Presidents and other government officials have the option to purchase the gifts they received in office for their market value if they choose, as Hillary Clinton did following her tenure as secretary of state. She chose to purchase the black pearl necklace given to her by Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2012, a gift, priced at $970. But usually, the gifts become a relic of past diplomacy, a little bit of history in the form of a novelty tea infuser or a ceremonial dagger, tucked away and carefully catalogued.”
The article surely was written tongue-in-cheek. Only watch nerds and conspiracy theorists would have noticed the watches in the first place and assumed it mattered
Saw Michael Strahan yesterday with what looked like a PP Nautilus. BTW, is Tom Brady not the greatest QB of all time?