Sheldon Gary Adelson was a great supporter of the Republican Party and right-wing causes in Israel. Also a renowned philanthropist, businessperson, entrepreneur, and political contributor internationally who in his nearly seven-decade business career created, built and developed more than 50 different companies to maturity, including the computer industry tradeshow COMDEX. Under his management, COMDEX grew to become the world's largest TRADE show in many countries worldwide. When the Sands went ... moreSheldon Gary Adelson was a great supporter of the Republican Party and right-wing causes in Israel. Also a renowned philanthropist, businessperson, entrepreneur, and political contributor internationally who in his nearly seven-decade business career created, built and developed more than 50 different companies to maturity, including the computer industry tradeshow COMDEX. Under his management, COMDEX grew to become the world's largest TRADE show in many countries worldwide. When the Sands went public in 2004, for more than two years, Mr Sheldon's net worth grew by $1 million an hour, including weekends and holidays, and sometimes after 2013, the cash register rang up $2 million an hour.
The Boston born Mr Adelson was one of Sarah's (Tonkin) Adelson and Arthur Adelson's four children; his mother was a British immigrant and his father was a descendant of the Jewish Ukrainian and Lithuanian linage. Growing up for him wasn't all rosy, neither was he born into wealth; one of the boy's forebears had been a Welsh coal miner. His parents slept on a single mattress on a two-bedroom flat floor with the four children in Boston's Dorchester section. Adelson grew up tough with his entrepreneurial spirit. As a goal-getter at 12, he sold newspaper and had a candy-vending machine at age 16 in major factories and gas stations while his father drove a taxicab.
In the 1950s, Mr Adelson attended the City College of New York, but he dropped out to join the army in less than two years. After serving in the army, Mr Adelson started businesses in different fields, from hotel toiletries to charter tour operations, magazine ads, developed condominiums, windshield de-icers and many more. The American patriot and his four partners started Comdex, a computer trade show in 1979 in Las Vegas before computers became a norm. The show opened buyers and sellers up to the latest technology in a field that was exponentially growing, and Sheldon battled his way out of a tough Boston neighborhood to build a successful enterprise that loyally employed tens of thousands and entertained millions. Like all great investors and businesspersons, he was said to have made and lost huge sums on different occasions. After his trade show success, he bought the Sands Hotel and Casino for $128 million. Unafraid of rivals, law, or taking risks, he built a fortune estimated at $36.6 billion by Forbes in 2014 and by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $40.8 billion to secure a place for him as the world's eighth or ninth wealthiest person.
Sheldon is a strong supporter of Israel, a generous benefactor of charitable causes, especially medical research and Jewish heritage education. The billionaire behind iconic casinos like The Venetian and Marina Bay Sands, lived in Vegas and donated more than $25 million to Trump presidential campaigns.
Adelson died on 21 January 2021 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma complications, a disease he was diagnosed with in2019.
