Casino mogul was megadonor to GOP, Israel
LAS VEGAS — Sheldon Adelson, who rose from a modest start as the son of an immigrant taxi driver to become a billionaire Republican power broker with a casino empire and influence on international politics, has died. He was 87.
Adelson died from complications related to treatment for nonHodgkin’s lymphoma, Las Vegas Sands announced Tuesday. The company announced last week that Adelson had stepped away from his role as CEO and chairman to resume treatments for the cancer, which he first announced in 2019.
In business, Adelson transformed a landmark Las Vegas casino that was once a hangout of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack into a towering Italianinspired complex, trailblazed a trend of turning business conventions into a lucrative industry and left his mark on some of Asia’s most cosmopolitan cities.
“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.
In politics, Adelson was a recordbreaking campaign donor who had the ear of domestic and international leaders, including President Trump. His advocacy redefined U. S. relations with Israel during the Trump administration and bolstered ties that U. S. politicians and American Jewish teenagers had to the country.
Adelson, the son of Jewish immigrants, once said at a gambling conference that he hoped his legacy would not be his glitzy casinos or hotels but his impact in Israel, where he had a deep and lifelong attachment.
In his modest office wedged among the casinos of the Las Vegas Strip, Adelson hosted top Republican Party strategists and candidates and helped ensure that uncritical support of Israel became a pillar of the GOP platform. That was never more visible 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 sat front and center at the ceremony in Jerusalem with his wife, Miriam.
More recently, he reportedly purchased the U. S. ambassador’s official residence near Tel Aviv for $ 67 million in a maneuver that appeared aimed at preventing the embassy from relocating back to Tel Aviv after Trump leaves office. Just 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.
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 IsraeliAmerican Council, whose conferences have attracted top politicians. He also sponsored “Birthright” trips to Israel for young Jewish adults that were criticized by some participants as intolerant of opposing views.
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 has donated over $ 250 million to GOP candidates and groups since 2015. In 2020, he gave $ 75 million to a super PAC that attacked Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
“I’m against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections,” Adelson told Forbes magazine in 2012. “But as long as it’s doable I’m going to do it.” Forbes ranked him No. 19 in the U. S., worth an estimated $ 29.8 billion.
In what was widely seen as a mark of the Adelsons’ influence with Trump, Miriam Adelson was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.