Billionaire Sheldon Adelson at The Palazzo Las Vegas, his newest casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, January 8, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bob Riha Jr | Archive Photos | Getty Images
Sheldon Adelson, the multibillionaire casino mogul and Republican Party megadonor, died Monday at age 87.
Adelson died from complications related to treatment he was receiving for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, according to a press release Tuesday morning from Las Vegas Sands, the casino and resort company he owned.
Adelson, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes to be around $33 billion, had been among the most-watched donors supporting President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection effort. He was also a stalwart supporter of Israel, maintaining a close friendship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
His funeral will be held in Israel, and a memorial service in Las Vegas is planned for a later date.
“It is with unbearable pain that I announce the death of my husband, Sheldon G. Adelson, of complications from a long illness,” his wife, Miriam Adelson, 75, said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“To me — as to his children, grandchildren, and his legions of friends and admirers, employees and colleagues — he is utterly irreplaceable,” Miriam Adelson’s statement said.
Former President George W. Bush, to whom Adelson had previously donated, in a statement called the deceased entrepreneur “an American patriot, a generous benefactor of charitable causes, and a strong supporter of Israel.”
“Sheldon was a generous benefactor of charitable causes, especially medical research and Jewish heritage education. He will be missed by many – none more than his beloved family,” Bush said.
Adelson also gave tens of millions of dollars to support Republican presidential hopefuls in 2012, including to Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.
Adelson was raised in Boston. The son of a taxi driver and a knitting shop owner, he made his first forays into the business world at age 12 selling newspapers on street corners.
Starting in the late 1980s, Adelson moved into the casino business, purchasing the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for $128 million. The purchase would launch Las Vegas Sands as a global resort brand, boasting properties in the U.S. and Asia.
Adelson also owned the Israel Hayom newspaper and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the only major newspaper to endorse Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.
Adelson and his wife have combined to be the top campaign donors in the past two election cycles, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
All of their contributions went to Republican candidates, including efforts supporting Trump.
Between the 2018 and 2020 cycle, the couple gave over $340 million to GOP causes.
Despite having, at times, apparent tensions with Trump, Adelson remained one of the president’s biggest financial supporters in the 2020 election. The New York Times reported in August that Trump called up Adelson to berate him for not backing his bid for reelection.
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