←BackOligarchs and the Trump Admin: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson
- Casino moguls Sheldon and Miriam Adelson made their money chairing Sands Corp. Sheldon Adelson started by building a private expo center and the Venetian casino in Las Vegas in the 1990s, but his wealth started to skyrocket when he expanded to Singapore and Macau in the 2000s. Adelson properties Sands Macao and Marina Bay Sands became extremely successful. The Adelsons eventually sold the Las Vegas Venetian in 2021 for $6.25 billion to further expand in Singapore and Macau.
- Sheldon Adelson died in January, 2021. 2 years prior, in 2019, he handed his shares in Sands Corp to his wife Miriam, making her the richest person in Israel (she is a dual citizen). Miriam purchased a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks in 2023 (she has since become reviled in Dallas).
- Sheldon pursued an stubbornly anti-union policy at the Venetian, starting a 25 year labor struggle and making the Venetian the only non-union casino on the Vegas Strip for years. When the Adelsons demolished the Sands casino, which was unionized, in order to build the Venetian, Sheldon refused to recognize a union for the Venetian workers. This move violated a court ruling and NLRB orders to honor previous negotiations with the Sands union negotiators. 1,000 workers picketed in 1999 as a result, and Unite Here Local 226 spent the next 25 years fighting for the recognition of their union, which they only achieved after the Adelsons sold the Venetian to Apollo Global Management in 2021.
- The Adelsons are GOP megadonors, and some of Trump’s largest backers since 2016. They donated $133 million in 2016, $90 million in 2020, and $113 million in 2024. The Adelsons also spend colossal sums on Senate and House races, supplying “more than one-third of the funding for Congressional Leadership Fund and nearly one-quarter of Senate Leadership Fund’s” funding between 2016 and 2021. Both groups are the top GOP super PACs for the House and Senate, respectively. In total, the Adelsons gave about $280 million to groups fundraising for House and Senate races in that time frame. Miriam Adelson also donated $2 million to Ted Cruz’s 2024 re-election campaign and was an early backer of Ron DeSantis’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign in Florida. The Adelsons funneled $250,000 to a secret nonprofit set up by Nikki Haley in 2019 and donated to Haley’s Stand for America PAC in 2021.
- Sheldon Adelson described himself as a “one-issue person. That issue is Israel.” Miriam Adelson, Sheldon’s widow, was born in Israel, served in the IDF, and has continued the family’s pro-Israel political lobbying after Sheldon’s death. She reportedly supports Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. Sheldon Adelson was a long-time donor to the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States, until 2007. That year, he switched his donations to the Israeli-American Council (IAC), which he described as more committed to supporting Israel, i.e., unhindered by “political correctness”, than AIPAC.
- The Adelsons have funded the Zionist Organization of America and the Republican Jewish Coalition. The president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, called Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza a “win-win for everyone.”
- Miriam was frank about Sheldon’s influence over U.S. foreign policy, proudly writing that he “crafted the course of nations” in her statement about his death. Sheldon had sought to influence US foreign policy in the Middle East by donating to the Republican party since the 1990s, when he began donating to the GOP in an effort to oppose Bill Clinton’s diplomatic approach to Israel. Since then, the Adelson family’s lobbying has been credited with resulting in high-level policy outcomes, such as persuading Trump to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2017–which was built on land that was illegally confiscated from Palestinians. This move violated international law and a long series of agreements, such as a UN resolution that established Jerusalem as a legal entity independent of Israel in 1947. Trump would later recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2018.
- The Adelsons were deeply involved in Israeli politics. They own Israeli newspapers Israel Hayom and Makor Rishon and strongly supported Benjamin Netanyahu’s rise to power, with Israel Hayom serving as the “unofficial mouthpiece” for Netanyahu.
- Sheldon Adelson advocated for the United States dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran. He was the main financial backer of Freedom Watch, an advocacy organization focused on generating continued support for the Iraq War. Sheldon pushed for Trump’s appointment of war-hawk John Bolton as national security adviser during his first term.
- Miriam denounced protests critical of Israel in November 2023 by referring to them as “ghastly gatherings of radical Muslim and Black Lives Matter activists, ultra-progressives and career agitators.”
