Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson dies

Mostly apolitical for decades, Adelson became a donor of colossal sums towards the end of his life. His influence spread everywhere, when he and his wife, Miriam, donated to campaigns and causes through several super PACs. In 2012, Adelson became the largest individual donor in American electoral history, injecting more than $ 90 million into the presidential race in a failed effort to prevent President Barack Obama from winning a second term.

In her own statement on Tuesday, Miriam Adelson described her late husband as “the love of my life” and “my partner in romance, philanthropy, political activism and entrepreneurship. He was my soul mate”.

In addition to “improving the lives of individuals,” said Miriam, Sheldon “traced the course of nations. Some of the historical changes he helped to make – in the United States, Israel and elsewhere – are publicly known. Others do not. “But” the recognition of her own indispensable role was not important, “she said, and her” ideal end of the day was in the company of family and friends, not statesmen or celebrities. “

Before the 2016 election, the so-called “Adelson primary” had Republican candidates flocking to Las Vegas in search of his blessing. “While Adelson was buzzing about his Venetian kingdom on a motorized scooter during the retreat,” POLITICO reported during a 2014 meeting of Republican Jews, “he was often followed by Republican Party members, politicians and other donors eager to assess his mood, advise him on what he should do or just give him praise and gratitude. “

After that election, he gave $ 5 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, another record sum. In May 2018, he cut a check for $ 30 million to the Republican-led Congressional Leadership Fund, and donations continued throughout the election season. He spent election night in November 2018 watching the results at the White House, although the two fell out during the 2020 campaign.

He has also given millions over the years to pro-Israel organizations. However, Adelson has almost always remained out of the public eye.

“Despite his growing influence as a party king maker and his gigantic financial footprint,” wrote Mike Allen in September 2012, “Adelson is rarely seen or heard, and he has remained mysterious even to many of the leading Republicans.”

In this interview with POLITICO, Adelson quoted a legendary football coach when speaking of his determination to prevail: “I suppose you can say that I live by Vince Lombardi’s belief: ‘Winning is not everything, it is the only thing.’ So, I do whatever it takes, as long as it’s moral, ethical, principled, legal, ”he said.

Sheldon Gary Adelson was born in Boston on August 4, 1933, the son of a Lithuanian taxi driver and a seamstress born in Wales. “I didn’t know we were poor, but we were very poor,” he would say later.

At the age of 12, he started his own business as a newspaper seller, buying the exclusive rights to sell papers outside of Filene’s Basement, a Boston department store. Four years later, he launched a vending machine business. “Adelson fought for a better life,” wrote Mother Jones magazine in 2016, “through economics, opportunism and hard work, emerging, according to many reports, as a combative and thorny fighter.”

In 1979, Adelson was one of the founders of Comdex, a lucrative computer show in Las Vegas. “Sheldon wanted to be richer than Bill Gates,” a former Comdex CEO told the New York Times in 2008. “He always wanted to be No. 1.”

Having dropped out of college, Adelson relied on his courage and instincts when moving from business to business. Given the frequency with which he played the dice in his career, it is perhaps no surprise that he joined the casinos, starting with The Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The Sands had a romantic and notorious history, associated with Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, Howard Hughes, and mobsters like Meyer Lansky. In 1988, when Adelson bought it, it worked with smoke.

He destroyed it. The Venetian rose in his place.

Built at a cost of $ 1.5 billion, the new casino opened on May 3, 1999. The glamorous assistance that day was provided by Italian film star Sophia Loren, who said she was “absolutely amazed” at the resort ” absolutely miraculous “. Casinos in another would follow, including Singapore and Macau. In October 2019, Forbes estimated Adelson’s net worth at $ 34.4 billion.

The legal issues came with great wealth: Adelson and his company were the subject of a series of government investigations. In 2017, his casino company paid a $ 6.96 million fine to resolve a Department of Justice investigation and a $ 9 million fine in a securities bribe case.

The keen-tempered tycoon was also the target of multimillion-dollar lawsuits, as well as battles with contractors and local officials. And there was a murmur in 2015, when it became clear that he was the secret buyer of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s most influential newspaper.

In 1991, Adelson married Miriam Ochshorn, 12 years younger and a native of his beloved Israel, whom he met on a blind date three years after divorcing his first wife, Sandra. The two would pair up at many companies, including Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation. “She is a talented doctor, as well as her husband’s partner in a range of commercial and philanthropic activities,” wrote Fortune in 2012.

“Sheldon is everything to me,” Miriam told Fortune for that article. She added, “We are on a magnificent flight together.”

Israel would be the focus of their philanthropy, with the two donating more than $ 100 million to Birthright Israel, an organization that funds travel to Israel for American Jews.

In listing the most influential Jews in the world in 2015, the Jewish newspaper Algemeiner said that Adelson “continues to make huge gifts for a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish groups”. (These efforts would be cited when Trump awarded Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.)

Sheldon Adelson arrived relatively late in the political world. Democrat in his formative years, he always said: “I didn’t leave the Democrats, they left me”. He said it was the 1988 Democratic National Convention that inspired him – in this case, to become a Republican supporter.

“Adelson said,” wrote Allen, “that it had been quite apolitical until a friend invited him to his first national political convention – the 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta. ‘It really wasn’t much fun because wherever I went … everyone was talking about the kind of work they are going to get when Michael Dukakis becomes president, “he recalled.” It disgusted me. ”

No political figure would attract his contempt more than Obama, whose policies for the Middle East he considered dangerous. This concern attracted him strongly to the 2012 campaign, in which he initially supported the former mayor, Newt Gingrich. “Adelson, who allegedly donated up to $ 20 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future, is primarily concerned with defending Israel,” wrote POLITICO in 2012.

As soon as it became clear that Gingrich would not win, he bet everything on Mitt Romney, donating at least $ 70 million to the Republican candidate – and most likely more, in the form of donations to groups that do not need to disclose their donors.

Romney lost, but Adelson’s extravagant spending created a frenzy around him for the 2016 election.

At first, he and his wife remained on the sidelines, disappointing those who hoped to support Florida Senator Marco Rubio or another anti-Trump GOP candidate. “No one knows exactly why he is still on the sidelines or when he can leave,” said a Republican operative in February 2016.

In May, Adelson supported Trump. “If Republicans do not come together in support of Trump, Obama will essentially receive something that the Constitution does not allow – a third term in the name of Hillary Clinton,” he wrote. Adelson and Trump later met to talk. The money came in.

After Trump was elected, Adelson made a donation to his inaugural committee. However, there were times when they did not agree, especially when Jewish activists close to Adelson spoke about Trump’s dumb reaction to an increase in anti-Semitic incidents. In November 2017, the Adelsons also made it clear that they were not on board Steve Bannon’s insurgent efforts against the Republicans of the establishment. “They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent,” said a spokesman.

Extending their reach beyond the presidential elections, the Adelsons supported candidates in secondary disputes, with mixed success. They also opposed the legalization of marijuana and online gambling.

As a veteran of the gaming industry, Adelson said he was not bothered by the ups and downs of electoral politics.

“I happen to be in a unique business, where winning and losing is the basis of the whole business,” said Adelson at one point. “Not to cry when I lose. There is always a new hand emerging. “

Quint Forgey contributed to this report.