He was a loyal supporter of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu: the founder of the Las Vegas Sands group, Sheldon Adelson, died on the night of Monday 11 to Tuesday 12 January, at the age of 87, as a result of cancer. He will be buried in Israel, according to a statement released by his company.
The casino magnate, whose group employing 50,000 people owns two luxury resorts on the Las Vegas Strip – The Venetian and The Palazzo – and casinos in Macau and Singapore, had largely worked in favor of the current president American. In Las Vegas, he owned the American daily The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
He fiercely fought the policies of President Obama, before becoming, in 2016, the main donor of Trump’s election campaign and renewing his support in 2020. In early December 2020, the New York Times reported that Sheldon Adelson and his second wife, Miriam, had spent nearly $ 220 million (181 million euros) for the election. However, the millions poured into the Republican campaign were not enough to prevent the election of Democrat Joe Biden.
In addition to the generous donations to the American Republican Party, Mr. Adelson has done a lot for the Jewish community. He had created with his wife the Adelson Foundation which ” the main goal “ East “To strengthen the State of Israel and the Jewish people”, according to the organization’s website.
In Israel, his generosity has benefited Benyamin Netanyahu greatly through the free daily Israel Hayom that Mr. Adelson founded in 2007, today one of the most popular in Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister hailed “One of the greatest contributors in history to the Jewish people” and Israel and ensured that he would be remembered forever.
The multi-billionaire has never hidden his opposition to a two-state solution in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Fortune in the 1960s
More recently, in September 2020, Sheldon Adelson bought the official residence of the United States Ambassador to Israel, located in Herzilya, the upscale northern suburb of Tel Aviv. Quite a symbol: some observers saw it as a way to seal forever the transfer of the residence of the American ambassador to Jerusalem.
Born August 4, 1933 in Boston, Sheldon Gary Anderson grew up in the Dorchester district of the same city in the northeast of the United States. His father, of Jewish origin from Ukraine and Lithuania, was a taxi driver. Her mother, owner of a knitting workshop, had immigrated from England.
It was in the 1960s that he began to make a fortune with a charter travel company. According to Sands, he created about fifty companies. It was not until the age of 55 that the “Serial entrepreneur” entered the casino business in 1989 when he and his partners purchased the Sands Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for $ 128 million (105 million euros).
Before his death, he owned more than half of the $ 14 billion (€ 11.5 billion) gaming empire, with casinos in Las Vegas, Singapore and Macau, China, according to the magazine. Forbes. On Tuesday, his fortune was estimated at 35 billion dollars (just over 28 billion euros), according to the same source, who also ranked him 28e among the billionaires 2020. He leaves behind six children from his two marriages.
