Adelson, casino mogul, GOP power broker, dies
Sands chairman’s great cause was supporting Israel
LAS VEGAS – Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire mogul, Republican mega-donor and power broker who built a casino empire spanning from Las Vegas to China and became a singular force in domestic and international politics, died after a long illness.
Adelson died at 87 from complications related to treatment for nonHodgkin’s lymphoma, Las Vegas Sands announced Tuesday.
He was the son of Jewish immigrants, raised with two siblings in a Boston tenement, who over the second half of his life became one of the world’s richest men.
The chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. brought singing gondoliers to the Vegas Strip and foresaw that Asia would be an even bigger market.
In 2020, Forbes ranked him No. 19 in the U.S., worth an estimated $29.8 billion.
“If you do things differently, success will follow you like a shadow,” he said during a 2014 talk to the gambling industry in Las Vegas.
Blunt yet secretive, the squatly built Adelson resembled an old-fashioned political boss and stood apart from most American Jews, who for decades have supported Democrats by wide margins. Adelson was considered the nation’s most influential GOP donor over the final years of his life, and he set records for individual contributions during past election cycles.
In 2012, Politico called him “the dominant pioneer of the super PAC era.”
Adelson regularly hosted the party’s top strategists and most ambitious candidates at his modest office, wedged among the casinos on the Strip.
Throughout, he helped ensure that uncritical support of Israel became a pillar of the GOP platform, never more visibly than when the Trump administration relocated the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018.
The inflammatory move had been adamantly opposed by Palestinians and was long a priority for Adelson, who had even offered to help pay for it, and for the Republican Jewish Coalition, of which he was the primary benefactor. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, were front and center at the ceremony in Jerusalem.
More recently, he reportedly purchased the U.S. ambassador’s official residence near Tel Aviv for some $67 million in a maneuver that appeared be aimed at preventing the embassy from relocating back to Tel Aviv after Trump leaves office. Weeks ago, Adelson provided a private plane for Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who spent 30 years in prison for spying for Israel, to move to Israel after his parole ended.
When asked at a gambling conference what he hoped his legacy would be, Adelson said it wasn’t his glitzy casinos or hotels, it was his impact in Israel. He donated $25 million, a record sum for a private citizen, to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
He established a think tank in Jerusalem. He was closely aligned with the conservative Likud party and funded a widely read free daily newspaper called “Israel Hayom,” or “Israel Today,” so supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that some Israelis nicknamed it “Bibi-ton,” a play on words combining Netanyahu’s nickname with the Hebrew word for newspaper.
In the U.S., Adelson helped underwrite congressional trips to Israel, helped build a new headquarters for the lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and later was a top supporter of the Israeli-american Council, whose conferences have attracted top Republicans (Vice President Mike Pence) and Democrats (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi). He sponsored “Birthright” trips to Israel for young Jewish adults that were criticized by some participants as intolerant of opposing views.
His attachment to Israel was life-long and so deep that he once said he wished his military service had been in an Israeli uniform instead of an American one.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Adelson “will forever be remembered” for his work strengthening ties between the U.S. and Israel.
Adelson was a late bloomer in business and in politics. He didn’t become a casino owner, or a Republican, until well into middle age.
“Sheldon battled his way out of a tough Boston neighborhood to build a successful enterprise that loyally employed tens of thousands – and entertained millions,” former President George W. Bush said in a statement. “He was an American patriot and a strong supporter of Israel.”
Adelson’s leverage grew considerably in 2010 after the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision lifted many restrictions on individual campaign contributions. He and his wife spent more than $90 million on the 2012 election, funding presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and later Mitt Romney, who also lost to Democrat Barack Obama.
“I’m against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections,” he told Forbes magazine in 2012. “But as long as it’s doable I’m going to do it.”
Adelson came around slowly to Donald Trump, but after Trump’s surprise victory, the new president spoke often with Adelson and embraced his hardline views on the Middle East.