Billionaire amajor donor to theGOPand Israel
Sheldon Adelson, a cabdriver’s son who built the world’s largest empire of casinos and resort hotels in Las Vegas, Macao, Singapore and other gambling meccas and used his vast wealth to promote right-wing political agendas in America and Israel, died Monday at his home in Malibu, California. He was 87.
The cause was complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer, his company, the Las Vegas Sands, said Tuesday in a statement.
Adelson grew up tough, a Depression-era street urchin who hawked newspapers and fought roughnecks in Boston. Unfazed by risks, rivals or the law, he built a fortune estimated by Forbes in 2014 at $36.6 billion and by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $40.8 billion, making him the world’s eighth- or ninth-wealthiest person.
He became one of America’s heavyweight political spenders, the largest single donor in the 2012 elections.
In May 2016, after Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Adelson gave the Trump presidential campaign $25 million, its largest donor.
After Trump’s election, Adelson gave $5 million to the committee organizing the inauguration festivities. It was the largest single contribution to any president’s inaugural event, and on the day of the swearing-in ceremony in January 2017, Adelson and his wife sat along the aisle a few rows back as Trump took the oath of office. Under the Trump administration, the Adelsons achieved at least one of their long-held goals: the relocation of the U.S. Embassy fromTel Aviv to Jerusalem, in 2018.
With cornucopias of cash, Adelson for years had showered king’s ransoms on Republican Party stalwarts. He was a major supporter of President George W. Bush in 2004, and gave $92.7 million to campaigns and super PACs supporting Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and others in 2012.
He told Forbes he was willing to spend $100 million to defeat President Barack Obama.
Adelson’s influence was on display in March 2014, when four prospective presidential candidates — Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio, and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida — went to Las Vegas for what critics called an audition before the Republican Party’s most coveted and fearsome moneyman.
“The four Republican candidates prostrated themselves, seeking Adelson’s stamp of approval and cash,” Thomas B. Edsall wrote on the op-ed page of The New York Times.
Adelson set off another flap in December 2015 when he bought The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s biggest newspaper, for $140 million, using a shell company to hide his involvement. When he was revealed as the buyer by his own newspaper, questions were raised about whether he would interfere with its journalistic independence. His family pledged that the paper would be “fair, unbiased and accurate,” but the editor and some staff members took a buyout and resigned. The ReviewJournal was reportedly the only major U.S. newspaper to endorse Trump for president.
In Israel, where he had a home and owned major conservative media outlets, Adelson supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. He opposed statehood for Palestinians, favored Israeli settlements in occupied territories and underwrote junkets to Israel by congressional Republicans.
Adelson and his wife contributed hundreds of millions to medical research, education and other philanthropies in America and Israel. They also gave $500,000 to Bush for his second inauguration in 2005, and in 2008 accompanied him to Jerusalem for the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding.
“Laura and I mourn the passing of a friend, Sheldon Adelson,” GeorgeW. Bush said in a statement Tuesday, referring to the former first lady. “Sheldon battled his way out of a tough Boston neighborhood to build a successful enterprise that loyally employed tens of thousands — and entertained millions.”
He called Adelson “an American patriot,” “a strong supporter of Israel” and a “generous benefactor of charitable causes, especially medical research and Jewish heritage education.”