Sheldon Gary Adelson was an American businessman, investor, political donor, and philanthropist.
73 Facts About Sheldon Adelson
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Sheldon Adelson was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operated The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center before selling the properties in early 2022.
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Sheldon Adelson owned the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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Sheldon Adelson was a major contributor to Republican Party candidates and was often dubbed a "kingmaker" due to the size and frequency of his donations.
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Sheldon Adelson was a major backer of Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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In September 2017, Sheldon Adelson was listed by Forbes as having a fortune of US$35.7 billion, and as of September 2020 Forbes listed his net worth as US$29.8 billion.
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Sheldon Adelson was born on August 4,1933, and grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, the son of Sarah and Arthur Sheldon Adelson.
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Sheldon Adelson's mother immigrated from England, and Adelson said that his grandfather was a Welsh coal miner.
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Sheldon Adelson's father was a taxi driver, and his mother ran a knitting shop.
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Sheldon Adelson began his business career at the age of 12 when he borrowed $200 from his uncle and purchased a license to sell newspapers in Boston.
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Sheldon Adelson attended the City College of New York, but did not graduate.
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Sheldon Adelson attended trade school in a failed attempt to become a court reporter, then joined the army.
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Sheldon Adelson soon became a millionaire, although by his thirties he had built and lost his fortune twice.
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In 1988, Sheldon Adelson purchased the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for $110 million.
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In 1991, while honeymooning in Venice with his second wife, Miriam, Sheldon Adelson came up with the idea for a mega-resort hotel.
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Sheldon Adelson razed the Sands and spent $1.5 billion to construct The Venetian, a Venice-themed resort hotel and casino, which opened on May 3,1999.
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Sheldon Adelson led a project to bring Las Vegas Sands casinos to Macau.
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Sheldon Adelson said that he planned to open more hotels under brands such as Four Seasons, Sheraton, and St Regis.
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Sheldon Adelson's company was reportedly under federal investigation over alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relating to payments made to a Macau lawyer.
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In 2007, Sheldon Adelson made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Israeli newspaper Maariv.
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On March 31,2014, Sheldon Adelson received the go-ahead from a Jerusalem court to purchase Maariv and the conservative newspaper Makor Rishon.
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In 2016, Sheldon Adelson's attorney announced that he does not own Israel Hayom, but that it is owned by a relative of his.
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In 2011, the Israeli press said that Sheldon Adelson was unhappy with the coverage on Israeli Channel 10 alleging he had acquired a casino license in Las Vegas inappropriately through political connections.
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In December 2015, Sheldon Adelson purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper.
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Sheldon Adelson began to personally review, edit, and sometimes kill stories about an Adelson-promoted proposal for a new Las Vegas football stadium.
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Longtime columnist John L Smith, who had often written about Adelson and had been unsuccessfully sued for libel by him, resigned after he was told he could no longer write anything about Adelson.
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At the November 2017 conference of the Israeli-American Council, Sheldon Adelson declared that the organization should become primarily a political lobbying group on Israel-related issues.
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In contrast to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supports a two-state solution and continued aid to the Palestinians, Sheldon Adelson charted a course for IAC to oppose both of these positions; Sheldon Adelson himself opposed a two-state solution.
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Israeli journalist Chemi Shalev said that IAC had not intended to become a political pressure group and that Sheldon Adelson had "hijacked" it for his "hard-right agenda".
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In early 2015, Sheldon Adelson publicly backed a bill introduced in the US House of Representatives.
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Sheldon Adelson received the Chairman's Award from the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a think tank in Las Vegas, for his efforts to advance free market principles in Nevada.
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In 2014, Sheldon Adelson was named to CNBC's list of 200 people who have transformed business over the last 25 years.
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The New Yorker article quoted Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democratic Party congresswoman, with whom Sheldon Adelson had a long feud.
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Sheldon Adelson worked for him in the 1990s as vice-president of legal and governmental affairs, and said Adelson told her that "old Democrats were with the union and he wanted to break the back of the union, consequently he had to break the back of the Democrats".
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The Boston Globe said that Sheldon Adelson "waged some bitter anti-union battles in Las Vegas".
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Berkley is further quoted in The New Yorker article as saying that Sheldon Adelson "seeks to dominate politics and public policy through the raw power of money".
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Sheldon Adelson was the principal financial backer of Freedom's Watch, a now-defunct political advocacy group founded to counter the influence of George Soros and Democratic-leaning lobby groups such as MoveOn.
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In 2010, Sheldon Adelson donated $1 million to American Solutions for Winning the Future, a political action committee supporting Republican former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
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On January 7,2012, Sheldon Adelson bolstered Gingrich's then-faltering campaign with a $5-million donation to the pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future.
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Sheldon Adelson told Forbes that he was willing to donate as much as $100 million to Gingrich.
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Sheldon Adelson donated $5 million to the right-leaning super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund and over $60,000 to the Republican National Committee.
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In June 2012, Sheldon Adelson donated $10 million to the pro-Romney PAC Restore Our Future.
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Sheldon Adelson joined Woody Johnson, John Rakolta, Paul Singer, and several dozen other contributors on the trip.
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Romney believed that the People's Republic of China should have been pressured to drop its presumptively low fixed exchange rate policy; according to Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson would have benefitted financially in US dollar terms through his interest in Chinese casinos if the Chinese yuan were to have appreciated.
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Early in 2014, Sheldon Adelson donated $2.5 million to the Drug Free Florida Committee, the political committee trying to defeat Florida's Right to Medical Marijuana Initiative which would legalize medical cannabis in that state.
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Later in 2014, Sheldon Adelson donated an additional $1.5 million to the No On 2 campaign.
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In March 2014 Sheldon Adelson was set to hold one-on-one chats with possible candidates Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and John Kasich during the spring meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition held at Sheldon Adelson's hotel and casino The Venetian Las Vegas.
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In October 2016, Sheldon Adelson donated one million dollars to the campaign against Massachusetts ballot question 4 the Massachusetts Legalization, Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Initiative which legalized marijuana for personal use.
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Sheldon Adelson donated $1,500,000 towards the unsuccessful effort to thwart the 2016 Florida medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative.
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Sheldon Adelson sat out the 2016 Republican primaries, with some early indicators at the beginning of 2016 interpreted as showing that Sheldon Adelson favored Trump.
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In May 2016, explaining his reasons for officially endorsing Donald Trump's presidential bid, Sheldon Adelson cited the importance of CEO experience in a presidential nominee.
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On October 15,2020, Sheldon Adelson gave $75 million to a Trump PAC, in a late push for reelection.
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Sheldon Adelson was the largest donor to Trump's inaugural celebrations, with a $5 million donation to the celebrations.
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Sheldon Adelson donated $5 million to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2014.
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Sheldon Adelson donated over $25 million to The Sheldon Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas to build a high school.
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In 2006, Sheldon Adelson contributed $25 million to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.
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Sheldon Adelson met Miriam Farbstein Ochshorn, a medical doctor, on a blind date the following year; they married in 1991.
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Sheldon Adelson was previously married to a Tel Aviv physician, Dr Ariel Ochshorn, with whom she had two daughters.
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In 2008 Richard Suen, a Hong Kong businessman who had helped Sheldon Adelson make connections with leading Chinese officials in order to obtain the Macau license, took Sheldon Adelson to court in Las Vegas alleging he had reneged on his agreement to allow Suen to profit from the venture.
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Sheldon Adelson faced another trial over claims by three alleged "middlemen" in the deal who are suing for at least $450 million.
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Allegedly, Chinese officials were bribed to allow Sheldon Adelson to build his Macau casino.
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Sheldon Adelson successfully sued the London Daily Mail for libel in 2008.
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Sheldon Adelson sued for libel, but a federal judge dismissed the suit in September 2013, ordering Sheldon Adelson to pay the NJDC's legal fees.
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In 2007, Sheldon Adelson's estimated wealth was $26.5 billion, making him the third-richest person in the United States according to Forbes.
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Sheldon Adelson lost $4 billion in 2008, more than any other American billionaire.
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In 2013, Sheldon Adelson earned a top ranking on Forbes Annual "Biggest Winner" List, his dramatic growth a result of the success of his casinos in Macau and Singapore, adding an estimated $15 billion to his net worth during the year.
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In 2013, Sheldon Adelson was worth $37.2 billion according to Forbes, and as of December 2014, his net worth was $30.4 billion.
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Sheldon Adelson owned a fleet of private jets through Las Vegas Sands.
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In 2001, Sheldon Adelson was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, which restricted his ability to stand and walk.
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On February 28,2019, Las Vegas Sands announced that Sheldon Adelson was receiving treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
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The news was disclosed after a Sands attorney claimed Sheldon Adelson was too weak to sit for a deposition in a court case involving Richard Suen.
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On January 11,2021, Sheldon Adelson died at his home in Malibu, California, at the age of 87, after long-term illnesses.
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Sheldon Adelson was buried the next day, in a small private ceremony on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.