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Sheldon Adelson

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Sheldon Adelson

Sheldon Gary Adelson (August 4, 1933 – January 11, 2021) was an American businessman, investor, and political donor. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which founded the Marina Bay Sands luxury resort in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operated The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He owned the Israeli free daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Adelson created the Adelson Foundation in 2007, a private charity focusing on healthcare and support of Israel and the Jewish people. He was a major contributor to Republican Party candidates and was often dubbed a "kingmaker" due to the size and frequency of his donations. He was Donald Trump's largest donor in 2016 and 2020, providing the largest donation to Trump's 2016 campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference, and his 2020 campaign. He was also a major backer of Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In 2020, Forbes listed his net worth as US$29.8 billion.

Adelson was born on August 4, 1933, and grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, the son of Sarah (née Tonkin) and Arthur Adelson. He was Jewish. His father's family was of Ukrainian Jewish and Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. His mother emigrated from England, and Adelson said that his grandfather was a Welsh coal miner. His father was a taxi driver, and his mother ran a knitting shop.

He began his business career at the age of 10 when he borrowed $200 from his uncle and purchased a license to sell newspapers in Boston. In 1948, at the age of 15, he borrowed $10,000 from his uncle to start a candy vending-machine business. He attended the City College of New York, but did not graduate. He attended trade school in a failed attempt to become a court reporter, then joined the United States Army.

After being discharged from the army, he established a business selling toiletry kits, then started another business, De-Ice-It, which marketed a chemical spray that cleared ice from windshields. In the 1960s, he started a charter tour business. He soon became a millionaire, although by his thirties he had built and lost his fortune twice. Over the course of his business career, Adelson created almost 50 businesses, making him a serial entrepreneur.

In the late 1970s, Adelson and his partners developed the COMDEX trade shows for the computer industry, beginning in 1979. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world through much of the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1995, Adelson and his partners sold the Interface Group Show Division, including the COMDEX shows, to SoftBank Group of Japan for $862 million; Adelson's share was over $500 million.

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