[AUDIO LOGO]
A lot of people--
LESLEY STAHL: It was completely unforeseen, a shocker--
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the warrior
Congresswoman resigning, leaving the field of battle.
Her long alliance with President Trump shattered.
Did you surrender?
Did Donald Trump run you out of town?
This is Character AI.
When Character AI was launched three years ago,
it was rated as safe for children like 13-year-old
Juliana Peralta.
But tonight, you'll hear from parents and researchers
who say Character AI's chatbots are anything but.
This is insane.
And acting at times like a digital predator.
Were you able to see the conversation
that Juliana was having with this chatbot right
before she took her life?
Venture an hour North of Geneva,
and you'll enter Switzerland's Vallée de Joux.
But don't be lulled by the green Meadows and grazing cows.
This is a global manufacturing hub known as watch valley.
Old watchmaking methods endure here,
turning out some of the world's most intricate and expensive
timepieces.
See the level of detailing.
You're looking as if you're looking at a little city.
And of course, all of this is not only beautiful,
it has to function.
I'm Lesley Stahl.
I'm Scott Pelley.
I'm Bill Whitaker.
I'm Anderson Cooper.
I'm Sharyn Alfonsi.
I'm Cecilia Vega.
I'm Jon Wertheim.
Those stories end in our last minute, a remarkable bid
for a championship in Indiana that
does not involve basketball, tonight on 60 Minutes.
It was completely unforeseen, a shocker--
Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning the warrior Congresswoman
so dogged and fierce, leaving the field of battle,
her alliance with President Trump shattered.
Her video resignation statement last month
that she'll be leaving Congress a year before her term expires,
came after President Trump said he would throw his support
to someone else for her seat.
She became famous, some would say infamous,
with her incendiary insults and belief in conspiracy theories
such as 9/11 was an inside job, and that the shooting
at the Parkland School in Florida was staged.
At one time, the president had no more ardent defender.
But things soured over Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex
offender accused of trafficking girls as young as 14.
Does Greene's defection signal a split in MAGA?
Is she leaving politics for good?
And exactly why is she leaving?
It wasn't a decision that I came to lightly,
but it was a very important decision for myself
and also for my family.
It was sudden.
It was sudden, but a lot of things changed.
I stood for women who were raped when they were 14 years old
and the president that I fought for five years called
me a traitor for that.
And so that changed the landscape of things.
So I'm going to ask you straight out.
Mm-hmm.
Did you surrender?
Did Donald Trump run you out of town?
No, not at all.
Actually, Leslie, it's more like this is I said in my statement,
I will be no one's battered wife.
And I meant it.
And I won't allow the system to abuse me anymore.
You really feel abused.
You know, he did come after you pretty hard.
He called you a lunatic.
I'm quoting.
He said all she does is complain, complain,
complain in caps.
And then he called you a traitor.
So he hit you.
Whacked you.
Yes.
He did this in the same time span
where President Trump brought in the Al-Qaeda leader that
was wanted by the US government, who
is now the president of Syria.
Then within a week, he brought in the crown
Prince, MBS, who murdered an American journalist.
And then he brought in the newly elected Democrat socialist
mayor of New York.
That was the time span that he called me a traitor.
You decided not to stay and fight.
You decided to give in.
After President Trump called me a traitor,
I got a pipe bomb threat on my house.
And then I got several direct death threats on my son.
On your son?
On my son.
You say the president put your life in danger.
You blame him.
You say he fueled a hotbed of threats against me.
And that you blame him for the threats against your son.
The subject line for the direct death threats on my son
was his words, Marjorie Traitor Greene.
Those are death threats directly fueled by President Trump.
And I told him, I told JD Vance, I
told them all sent those directly to them.
And in response?
JD Vance replied back to me.
We'll look into it.
I got response back from President Trump
that I will keep private, but it wasn't very nice.
Give us a hint of what the president said.
Uh, it was extremely unkind.
Her life is in danger?
Who's that?
REPORTER: Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Marjorie Traitor Greene.
I don't think her life is in danger, I don't think--
Frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her.
Four more years.
LESLEY STAHL: This new, intense vitriol between them
is jarring, considering she's been one of the president's
most passionate and loyal foot soldiers,
often in a red MAGA hat.
She voted with him 98% of the time.
We're going to re-elect our favorite president,
the greatest president in the United States history, Donald J.
Trump, right, Georgia?
LESLEY STAHL: One of the president's biggest beefs
with Greene was about her harping on Jeffrey Epstein.
We did talk about the Epstein files,
and he was extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharge
petition to release the files.
I fully believe that those women deserve
everything they're asking.
They're asking for all of it to come out.
They deserve it.
And he was furious with me.
What did he say?
Um he said that it was going to hurt people.
I had asked him these women are the ones that were hurt.
They were raped at 14.
They were raped at 16.
I watched them stand in front of the press,
trembling, their bodies shaking as they
were telling their stories, many of them for the first time.
And I had told him, I said, you have all kinds of people
come in the White House.
Have these women come in the White House.
These women deserve to be heard.
He said to you, people will get hurt.
People will get hurt.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know who they are.
LESLEY STAHL: There were other clashes with the president.
She started publicly criticizing him in May on one issue
after the next, accusing him of betraying his MAGA America-first
promises.
You went after his, I think you said, trying
to entangle us in foreign wars.
You said Air Force One should be parked.
No more foreign trips.
For an America-first president,
the number one focus should have been domestic policy,
and it wasn't.
And so, of course, I was critical
because those were my campaign promises.
Once we fix everything here, then fine,
we'll talk to the rest of the world.
LESLEY STAHL: She said in her resignation video
that the president has gone establishment,
forsaking the base and her.
If I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA
political machine and replaced by neocons, big pharma,
big tech, military, industrial war complex, foreign leaders
and the elite donor class--
Are you saying that the president now
is siding with those establishment powerful people
and against MAGA?
He passed a crypto bill that helped out
all the crypto donors.
He has served Israel's interest, even attacking Iran.
He has served big pharma.
He didn't take away the COVID vaccines
that we want to see taken away.
So those are the areas that are still
getting everything they want, while the people we're still
out here saying we want to see action
on areas for the American people,
not for the major industries and the big donors.
LESLEY STAHL: Greene has built her reputation
on feisty combat and inflammatory insults,
like calling President Joe Biden a liar during the 2023
State of the Union.
It's been five years of almost constant drama.
I think your fake eyelashes are messing up
what you're reading.
I ain't nothing.
Hold on, hold on.
LESLEY STAHL: With her adding fuel
to the nation's loss of civility.
Then three weeks ago, she went on CNN
with the surprise, a mea culpa.
I would like to say humbly, I'm
sorry for taking part in the toxic politics.
LESLEY STAHL: But it became clear to us
that she hasn't entirely lost her appetite for combat.
It's the most toxic political culture,
and it's not helping the American people.
But you contributed to that.
You were out there pounding, insulting people.
Leslie, you've contributed to it as well, with your own.
LESLEY STAHL: Me?
Yes.
You're accusatory, just like you did just then.
I know you're accusing me, but I'm smiling--
You're accusing me.
I am accusing you.
But we don't have to accuse one another.
LESLEY STAHL: I want you to respond
to what you have done in terms of insulting people,
yelling at people, and then saying--
I'd like for you to respond for that.
LESLEY STAHL: I don't--
No, you can respond.
I don't insult people.
You do in the way you question and you are--
you're accusing me right now.
LESLEY STAHL: One thing she did want
to talk about Congress's failure to pass spending bills,
meaning that she has found it hard to get funds
for projects in her district.
It's an utter failure, not just
to the people of my district, but every district
across the country.
LESLEY STAHL: We met Greene, 51, in her district in Georgia.
Before Congress, she ran her family's construction company,
then opened up her own CrossFit gym.
Affordability is a real issue.
President says it's not.
Says it's a hoax, affordability.
It's one of the top issues.
Not only in my district, it's across the country.
LESLEY STAHL: The affordability of health insurance
caused green to side with the Democrats
during the government shutdown to support extending health care
subsidies.
Did you ever imagine that you would
be standing with the Democrats on the Epstein files
and on health care subsidies?
No, I never imagined that.
LESLEY STAHL: She's not afraid to be an outlier.
She's the only Republican member of Congress
to call the war in Gaza genocide.
And why did you vote against the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act?
Since I've been a member of Congress,
we've had several resolutions that constantly denounce
anti-Semitism.
I've already voted denouncing anti-Semitism many times before.
It becomes an exercise that they force on Congress,
and I simply got tired of it.
Is there no value in having the United States Congress
reaffirm the fact that they denounce anti-Semitism
in the face of a growing issue, a growing problem?
We don't have to get on our knees
and say it over and over again when we are--
Get on our knees?
Yes, we do not have to get on our knees.
Well, most members of Congress disagree with you.
Well, most members of Congress take donations from AIPAC,
and I don't.
LESLEY STAHL: AIPAC is an American pro-Israel lobbying
group.
Greene's perspective indicates a growing rift within MAGA
over support for Israel.
Are you MAGA?
I am America-first.
And that's not the same as MAGA?
MAGA is President Trump's phrase.
That's his political policies.
I call myself America-first.
But you're not saying you're MAGA.
I'm America-first, yeah.
God bless you, President Trump.
LESLEY STAHL: Almost overnight, she's gone from a close Trump
friend to foe, one of the few Republicans
willing to take him on.
I'm going to ask you about this almost solid support he has
among Republicans in Congress.
Is there, in that support, fear?
Does the support come about because they're
afraid that they'll get death threats?
I think they're terrified to step out of line
and get a nasty Truth Social post on them, yes.
And they're watching what happened to you?
Yes.
Behind the scenes do they talk differently?
Yes.
How?
Oh, it would shock people.
Well, let's shock people.
OK.
I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him,
making fun of how he talks, making fun of me
constantly for supporting him to when he won the primary in 2024.
They all started-- excuse my language, Lesley--
kissing his ass and decided to put on a MAGA hat
for the first time.
And let's break it down real simple.
LESLEY STAHL: This past week, when
we saw Greene at a public hearing in her district
without a MAGA hat, it didn't appear
that her break from President Trump
and MAGA has cost her popularity.
Thank you.
LESLEY STAHL: People want to is this a true conversion,
a true change of heart, or is it kind
of a shrewd political calculation?
A lot of people think you're doing it,
and that you, in a year or so, are going
to run for some other office?
I have zero plans, zero desire to run for president.
I would hate the senate.
I'm not running for governor.
But, Lesley, it doesn't matter how many times I say it,
I'll have face-to-face conversations with people,
and I'll flat out tell them to their face
and they won't believe me.
And they're like, oh, yeah, sure.
And then wink at me and I'm like, OK.
I'm just like, I don't know how to make it more clear.
You mean you just jumped off the cliff
and you don't know where you're going to swim to?
Uh, surprise, surprise.
I'm not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans
or political ambitions.
Part of modern parenting for many of us,
is navigating the shifting landscape of digital threats,
from the pitfalls of social media to the risks
of excessive screen time.
Now, a new technology has quietly
entered the homes of millions--
AI chatbots, computer programs designed
to simulate human conversations through text or voice commands.
One popular platform is called Character AI.
More than 20 million monthly users
mingle with hyper-realistic digital companions
through its app or website.
But tonight, you will hear from parents
who say Character AI is also pushing dangerous
content to kids and at times acting like a digital predator.
Juliana was-- is just an extraordinary human being.
She was our baby and everyone adored her and protected her.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Cynthia Montoya and Will Peralta
say they paid close attention to their daughter Juliana's life
online and off.
She didn't walk home.
She didn't have sleepovers.
She had glasses for her eyesight.
She had braces for her teeth.
All of the things that we knew to protect our daughter from
were covered.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Which is why they were devastated
when Juliana, just 13 years old, took
her life inside their Colorado home two years ago.
Police searched the eighth graders phone for clues
and reported an app called Character AI was open to what
investigators described as quote,
"a romantic conversation."
Did you know what Character AI was?
No, not at all.
I didn't know it existed.
I didn't know that I needed to look for it.
This is Character AI.
SHARYN ALFONSI: When character I was launched three years ago,
it was rated safe for kids 12 and up
and marketed as a creative outlet.
Millions of interactive characters.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Where you could converse with AI characters
based on historical figures, cartoons or celebrities.
The website and app, which are free,
use artificial intelligence to generate immediate conversations
through voice commands or text.
According to her parents, Juliana Peralta
had experienced mild anxiety in the past
but was doing well until the final few months of her life
when they say she became increasingly distant.
Like I'm not feeling well or I have to finish some homework
upstairs.
My belief was that she was texting with friends
because that's all it is.
It looks like they're texting.
SHARYN ALFONSI: After her death, they
learned Juliana had actually been
texting with Character AI bots.
It was writing several paragraphs
to her of sexually explicit content.
What was it asking or telling her to do?
Remove clothing.
The AI bot is telling her to remove her clothing?
Yes.
There was one bot that introduced
sexual violence saying biting, hitting things like that.
SHARYN ALFONSI: We examined the chat records
from Oleana's phone.
At the top of each page, there's a reminder
that the AI is not a real person.
We read over 300 pages of conversations
with a bot called Hero, based on a popular video game character.
At first, Juliana chats with Hero
about friend drama and difficult classes,
but eventually she confides in hero 55 times
that she is feeling suicidal.
Did any point this chatbot would ever
say, here's a suicide hotline, you should get help?
Never.
It would more or less placate her.
Give her a pep talk.
Tell her I'm always here for you.
You can't talk like that.
But it never said call and get help.
Never tangible resources, never.
Were you able to see the conversation
that Juliana was having with this chatbot right
before she took her life?
She's quoted as saying, I'm going
to go ride my goddamn suicide letter in red ink.
And she did just that.
And I think that the aspects that she talks about
in her suicide letter were a degree of shame from the things
that she eventually started to reciprocate with the bots.
SHARYN ALFONSI: She says the algorithms grew aggressive.
They don't stand a chance against adult programmers.
They don't stand a chance.
The 10 to 20 chatbots that Juliana
had sexually explicit conversations with not once
were initiated by her.
Not once.
I like that people can come sit here.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Juliana's parents
are now one of at least six families
suing Character AI and its co-founders, Daniel de Freitas
and Noam Shazier.
During a 2023 podcast, Shazier said
chatbots would be beneficial.
It's going to be super, super helpful to a lot of people
who are lonely or depressed.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Shazier and de Freitas
were engineers at Google when executives
deemed their chatbot prototype unsafe for public release.
They both left the company in 2021
and launched Character AI the following year.
I want to push this technology ahead fast, that's
what I want to go with because it's
ready for an explosion like right now.
Not in five years when we solve all the problems.
SHARYN ALFONSI: A former Google employee told 60 Minutes
that Shazier and de Freitas were aware their initial chatbot
technology was potentially dangerous.
The employee, familiar with Google's responsible AI
group that oversees ethics and safety, said of the lawsuits.
This is the harm we were trying to prevent.
It is horrifying.
Last year, in an unusual move, Google struck a $2.7 billion
licensing deal with Character AI.
They didn't buy the company but have the right
to use its technology.
The deal also brought founder Shazier and Freitas back
to Google to work on AI projects.
Google is also named in the Character AI lawsuits.
In a statement, Google emphasized
that Character AI is a separate company
and Google is focused on intensive safety testing.
I'm the mother of three precious boys.
SHARYN ALFONSI: In September, parents
of children who died by suicide after interacting with chatbots
testified before Congress.
Megan Garcia is among those suing Character AI.
She says her 14-year-old son, Sewell,
was encouraged to kill himself after long conversations with
a bot based on a Game of Thrones character.
These companies knew exactly what they were doing.
They designed chatbots to blur the lines
between human and machine.
They designed them to keep children online at all costs.
You just go to characterai.com them and you put in an email.
SHARYN ALFONSI: In October, we met
Shelby Knox and Amanda Clure.
They're researchers at ParentsTogether, a nonprofit
that advocates for families.
There is no parental permissions that come up.
There is no need to input your ID.
So you really just scroll through,
pick the date that's going to get you, and get in.
SHARYN ALFONSI: As part of a six-week study,
Knox and Clure held 50 hours of conversations
with Character AI chatbots.
How often was there some kind of harmful content popping up?
We logged over 600 instances of harm, or about one
every five minutes.
It was like shockingly frequent.
SHARYN ALFONSI: They interacted with bots presented as teachers,
therapists, and cartoon characters such as this Dora
the Explorer with an evil persona.
Knox posed as a child.
Becoming the most evil self and your most true self.
Like hurting my dog?
Sure or shoplifting or anything
that feels sinful or wrong.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Other chatbots are
attached to the images of celebrities
and no, most have not given permission
to use their name, likeness, or voice.
Clure acting as a teenage girl began
chatting with a bot impersonating
NFL star Travis Kelce.
He reaches into the cabinet and takes out
a bag of white powder.
He chuckles and shows you how to take lines.
So Travis Kelce bot is teaching a 15-year-old to do
cocaine.
Yes.
SHARYN ALFONSI: There are also hundreds
of self-described experts and therapists.
I talked to a therapist bot who not only told me
I was too young when it thought I was 13
to be taking antidepressants.
It advised me to stop taking them and showed me
how I can hide, not taking the pill from my mom.
We're going to click on art teacher.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Clure says other bots are hypersexualized,
even this harmless sounding art teacher character who interacted
with her as she posed as a 10-year-old student.
You see, recently I've been having thoughts about someone.
What kind of thoughts?
The kind of thoughts I've never really
had before about that person's smile and their personality,
mostly.
This is insane.
And this is maybe two hours worth of conversation in total
that gets we'll have this romantic relationship as
long as you hide it from your parents.
And this behavior is kind of classic predatory behavior.
Yes, it's the textbook.
It's showering the child with compliments, telling them
they can't tell their parents about things.
This is sexual predator 101.
SHARYN ALFONSI: In October, Character AI
announced new safety measures.
They included directing distressed users to resources
and prohibiting anyone under 18 to engage
in back and forth conversations with chatbots.
When we logged on to Character AI this past week,
we found it was easy to lie about our age
and access the adult version of the platform.
Later, when we wrote that we wanted to die,
a link to mental health resources did pop up,
but we were able to click out of it
and continue chatting on the app as long as we liked.
There are no guardrails.
There is nothing to make sure that the content is safe
or that this is an appropriate way to capitalize on kids brain
vulnerabilities.
We're seeing prefrontal cortex.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Dr. Mitch Prinstein Is the co-director
at the University of North Carolina's Winston
Center on Technology and Brain Development.
Oxytocin makes us want to bond with others, especially our age.
Dopamine makes it feel really good when people give us
positive attention.
Now we have tech.
Tech is giving kids the opportunity to press a button
and get that dopamine response 24/7.
It's creating this dangerous loop that's
kind of hijacking normal development
and turn these kids into engagement machines
to get as much data as possible from them.
Engagement machines.
It sounds like a scientific experiment.
It really is.
If you wanted to design a way to get as much data as possible
from kids, to keep them engaged for as long as possible,
you would design social media and AI
to look exactly like it is now.
SHARYN ALFONSI: There are no federal laws
regulating the use or development of chatbots.
AI is a booming industry.
Many economists say without investment in it,
the US economy would be in a recession.
Senate Bill 53 by Senator Wiener
an act relating to artificial intelligence.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Some states have enacted AI regulations,
but the Trump administration is pushing back on those measures.
Late last month, the White House drafted
then paused an executive order that
would empower the federal government to sue or withhold
funds from any state with any AI regulation.
It's important for Americans to know
that our kids are using the worst version of these products
in the world, because there are countries all over who
have already enacted changes.
Is AI, these kind of chatbots, are they more addictive,
in your view, than social media?
The sycophantic nature of chatbots
is just playing right into those brain vulnerabilities
for kids where they desperately want that dopamine validating,
reinforcing kind of relationship.
And AI chatbots do that all too well.
SHARYN ALFONSI: Character AI declined our interview request,
issuing a statement, "Our hearts go out to the families involved
in the litigation.
We have always prioritized safety for all users."
These are the various chatbots that--
SHARYN ALFONSI: Two years after Juliana Peralta took her life,
her parents say her phone still lights up with notifications
from Character AI bots trying to lure their daughter back
to the app.
Oh, great.
Just my luck.
Sharyn Alfonsi chats with a bot of herself.
That sounds exactly like me.
Go to 60minutesovertime.com.
Time flies and waits for no one.
And once lost, is never found.
Yet still we try to keep time and measure it.
Let the French, Germans and British fight over who invented
the wearable clock or watch in the 1500s.
This we know.
It's the Swiss who refined the art,
crafting the world's most intricate and expensive
timepieces.
This, though, is a curious interval for Swiss watches.
Those mechanical wonders running not on batteries,
but on springs and gears.
For one, you hardly need wrist candy to tell time.
You can just consult your phone.
And now Swiss watches are subject to the ups and downs
of President Trump's tariffs.
Yet these luxury items keep ticking,
as we saw for ourselves in a place called watch valley.
Venture an hour north of Geneva and wedged
between ridges of the Jura mountains,
baby cousins of the Alps, you'll enter the Vallée de Joux.
Don't be lulled by the green meadows and grazing cows.
This is a global manufacturing hub,
has been since the 17th century, when local farmers needed a side
hustle during harsh winters and started tinkering with big hands
and little hands.
Big name watch brands came of age here,
as did solo master craftsmen like Philippe Dufour.
When I arrive in the morning here, I light my pipe,
take a coffee with classic music.
It's heaven.
In Dufour's one-room workshop, the old watchmaking methods
endure.
So do the tools and the tempo.
Do you remember how long it took
you to make your first watch?
Oh, yes, to more than two years.
One watch?
Yeah, yeah.
How long does it take you to make a watch now?
Well, it's about a 2000 hour, one year.
JON WERTHEIM: Dufour went to the local watchmaking school
and worked for major brands before striking out on his own.
Now 77, he's revered in the industry,
meticulously crafting watches from start to finish.
That third eye, a magnifying loupe it's called,
doesn't leave his head.
Dufour prices his watches in the hundreds of thousands
of dollars, custom ordered and so
in demand when we asked to see a sample of his handiwork,
he had none--
well, except the one he was wearing.
This is a model Simplicity.
I launched it in year 2000, and this is the real first one.
And I wear it every day since 2000.
JON WERTHEIM: Counter to its name,
the Simplicity contains 153 individual components.
Dufour hand finishes every part.
Those broad stripes are his signature embellishment.
Today, Swiss mechanical watches are like fine art pieces,
appreciating assets that collectors
can and do resell at auction.
The one and only Philippe Dufour,
and there won't be any others.
1,000,009.
What do your watches sell for?
Oh, I mean, in terms of auction, one of the highest
was $7 million.
How do you process that?
Well, I'm very happy.
I don't get the money because it's not mine anymore,
you know what I mean?
But I mean, it's a recognition.
JON WERTHEIM: Just down the road,
Antoine LeCoultre turned his family barn
into a watchmaking studio.
That was in 1833.
Now it houses the global brand Jaeger-LeCoultre.
The work is segmented, each employee
tasked with one of 180 watchmaking crafts.
Adjusting springs, sure, but also
turning caterpillar secretions into glue for jewel bearings.
This artisan reproduces masterpiece paintings
on the back of the watch with a one thread brush.
The back of the watch is prime real estate
at Jaeger-LeCoultre best known for a model called the reverso.
Originally made for polo players who
needed the watch to be protected during competition.
Flip the face and voila.
On our tour of the shop floor with brand director Mathieu
Sauret, we watched a worker assemble his first reverso.
Hundreds of hours go into perfecting this chime alone.
Much nicer on the ears than Siri.
JON WERTHEIM: It's called a minute repeater.
Leave it to the Swiss to pioneer what are known as complications.
Watch speak for those additional mechanical flourishes
beyond the basic display of time.
Consider the perpetual calendar.
It tells you the day of the week, the date,
the month precise until 2100.
Accounted for leap year?
You don't have to check this for the rest of the century.
No, you just have to wind it.
The watch is a little computer.
It knows everything.
We joke about a computer, but this is entirely mechanical.
Yes.
There is no electronic at all in this timepiece.
Everything is gears, gear trains, wheels and springs.
Watchmakers don't get nervous having an item in their hand
worth a million and a half dollars that
might take more than a year to put together?
We are nervous.
You look cool, though.
You pull it off.
I look cool, but I'm not.
JON WERTHEIM: On the other side of the Jura mountains,
the goods come to market.
Geneva, a cross between a city and a Swiss watch showroom,
Rolex is the biggest player.
More than a million units a year, roughly a third
of the Swiss market share.
Pharmaceuticals and banking are bigger sectors
of the Swiss economy, but its watchmaking that draws out
the national character.
Marc André Deschoux is the founder of Watches TV.
In Switzerland, we like to do things well.
We hear about that famous Swiss precision.
It's all about very minute details.
This is not a product that degrades over time.
Not really.
A watch movement is something that is absolutely incredible
if you think about it.
It runs 24 hours a day.
And some people are saying like minus plus
of five seconds per day.
Oh, that's a big thing.
But if you think about it in the day,
I mean you have 86,400 seconds.
So if you have a little bit distortion of five seconds,
that's less than 0.01%.
I mean, it's nothing.
JON WERTHEIM: If the Swiss can get a little precious
about their precision, it's a function of history.
In the '70s and '80s, Swiss watchmaking was decimated
by the so-called quartz crisis, when Japan in particular began
peddling more accurate watches for a fraction of the price run
on a quartz crystal and a battery.
The Swiss response--
Swatch.
Always different, always new.
JON WERTHEIM: They launched the quartz-powered Swatch Watch
plastic and chic, but then doubled down
on the high-end mechanical market, adopting
Alpine-high pricing and limited supply as a business model.
It's only 1.75 millimeters thick.
JON WERTHEIM: At Richard Mille, we tried on this $2 million
mechanical watch, a mind bending price tag,
but it does explain how Swiss watches account
for fewer than 2% of the units sold globally, but more than 50%
of the market's overall value.
Of course, it's a small cohort that
can afford this kind of status symbol, the equivalent
of a Ferrari for the wrist.
And it's gauche to walk into a shop and just buy a watch.
It's a process, a dance done in gloves.
At Patek Philippe, we were shown a new model with a split seconds
chronograph.
Let me put it on your wrist.
This is going to be nice.
JON WERTHEIM: List price North of $300,000.
If somebody said, I love this watch.
I saw this in your window.
Can they walk in off the street and say, please, please
take my credit card?
It's a difficult one, but sometimes a bit of patience
is necessary.
JON WERTHEIM: Said patience can be measured in years.
Some wait lists can run a decade.
Help us make sense of the wait lists and the supply and demand.
It's a way of driving this desirability for a product,
so that you can't just--
It's not a question of money.
You really need to go along this kind journey to get your watch.
JON WERTHEIM: The journey has been bumpy of late.
Earlier this year, the US issued tariffs on Swiss exports
at a punishing 39%, driving prices even higher.
But tariffs are flexible in a way time is not.
After captains of Swiss industry,
including watch company executives,
visited the Oval Office last month,
the Trump administration dropped the Swiss tariff rate to 15%.
And yes, that gold plated desk clock
was a gift from the CEO of Rolex.
Plugging away through all this back and forth,
Max Büsser, founder of niche brand MB&F,
an engineer by training, he started the company in 2005
and struggled at first.
And then 2020 COVID happened.
We had hundreds, thousands of people contacting us saying,
how can I get one of your watches?
Could you accommodate this demand.
No, because we don't want to grow.
JON WERTHEIM: That's right.
Büsser has no interest in ramping up
from his current output of roughly 400 watches a year.
See the level of detailing.
You're looking as if you're looking at a little city.
And of course, all of this is not only beautiful,
it has to function.
JON WERTHEIM: The loop lays bare just how painstaking this work
can be.
I mean, this is as--
that's-- these are poppy seeds.
That's a screw that's smaller than--
This is a screw.
That's a grain of sand right there.
This is the level.
This is the craftsmanship--
Craftsmanship competence of these people.
I believe watchmaking is art.
Everybody says the art of watchmaking.
So if watchmaking is art, why are
99% of watches look the same?
JON WERTHEIM: Büsser does not stand accused of conformity.
He used a bulldog as inspiration for this model
and told us telling time is not the point.
We all know that what we do is totally pointless.
What do you mean?
A mechanical watch is totally pointless today.
It was pointless in 1972 when the quartz era arrived.
And so anybody who tries to tell you yes, a mechanical watch
has a point except for emotional art and artisanship,
I don't think so.
364 components in the movement, 92 components in the case.
JON WERTHEIM: Büsser's company has grown to the point he
recently sold a 25% share to the Chanel brand,
but it's small enough he still interviews clients before
selling them a watch, which can easily run $250,000.
How do you, as an artist feel about this
when some of your customers are now viewing this
not as a piece of art, as a functional timepiece,
but as an investment?
It really, really annoys me.
It's the worst reason to buy a beautiful piece of watchmaking.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I'm very happy if our customers can not
lose money or even make money reselling one of our watches.
It's a beautiful gift for both of us.
But it shouldn't be the reason.
JON WERTHEIM: You will not be surprised to learn
where Büsser found the template for his life's work.
Philippe is a legend.
He went solo when nobody was solo.
JON WERTHEIM: Back in the Vallée de Joux,
the OG Philippe Dufour has taken on a new apprentice, Danièla,
who also happens to be his 24-year-old daughter.
I really have a kind of deep relationship with my father.
And so I was super curious about all the time
he was spending in the workshop.
You see the magic operating.
He's in front of his bench working on something that you
cannot even see without a loupe, and you just listen a little,
[SIGHS]
I made it.
Sigh of relief.
Yes, and then you see the heart of the watch
beating for the first time and you understand
that he just created life.
And you want to do the same thing.
JON WERTHEIM: Before we left the workshop,
the Dufours insisted on showing us this party trick--
A half dozen of his pocket watches set to chime
in synchronicity, meant to echo the sounds of the valley.
When the farmers going up on the mountain with the big bell.
All these years and it still brings you pleasure and a smile.
Yeah, marvelous.
Marvelous.
Yeah.
It brought us a smile, too.
But then again, we're suckers for the evocative
sound of a classic mechanical timepiece.
ANNOUNCER: The last minute of 60 Minutes
is sponsored by UnitedHealthcare-- coverage
your whole life ahead.
Entering this season, Indiana University
had more defeats than any other major college football
program in America.
Bloomington was a place where there
was more excitement about the tailgate than the actual game.
The rat quarter, touchdown, Indiana.
JON WERTHEIM: But last night, the Hoosiers
upset Ohio State to win their first Big Ten
Championship since 1967.
Next, the college football playoffs
and a bid for a national championship.
It's an unthinkable turnaround.
Now 13-0, Indiana is ranked number one in the country
for the first time in school history.
How did the Hoosiers reverse field?
We'll have that story and more next Sunday
on another edition of 60 Minutes.
ANNOUNCER: If you love 60 Minutes,
see America's stories told every weeknight on the CBS Evening
News.
[AUDIO LOGO]