The image uploaded to Las Vegas Sands Casino websites by hackers, on February 11, 2014. Photo: Screenshot / Bethlehem Morning Call.

Hackers on Tuesday took over the websites of the Las Vegas Sands Casino empire, uploading photos of its billionaire owner, Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson, standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the pair superimposed on a world map showing flames on the U.S. locations of his casinos.

According to the Morning Call of Bethlehem, PA, which hosts a Sands Corp. casino, the company’s websites were hacked around noon on Tuesday, and by 12:45 PM, the company had regained control of the sites, uploading a service message that, on Wednesday, still said they were “undergoing maintenance.”

In addition to the imagery, the hackers were able to upload a revolving list of Sands personnel data, including names, job positions and social security numbers, though, it appeared to the Morning Call, that the data only pertained to employees of the Bethlehem casino, out of the company’s 50,000 workers around the world. As well as Bethlehem,  Sands Corp. operates casinos in Las Vegas, Singapore and Macau.

On the top left of the screen, the hackers left a message for Adelson: “Damn A, don’t let your tongue cut your throat.” At the bottom of the screen, they said, “Encouraging the use of weapons of mass destruction, UNDER ANY CONDITIONS, is a crime.”

The short statement appeared to be signed by the “Anti WMD team.”

The WMD reference may have been to a much talked-about comment Adelson made at a panel in October, that his spokesman later described as hyperbole, about negotiating with the Iranian regime.

At a discussion forum at New York’s Yeshiva University, Adelson described the approach he would take to counter the Iranian nuclear threat: “What I would say, you pick up your cellphone […] and you call somewhere in Nebraska [where the U.S. might have its missile silos] and you say, okay, let it go, so there is an atomic weapon that goes over, a ballistic missile, in the middle of the desert that doesn’t hurt a soul.”

“Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes,'” Adelson said at the event.

Outside of the casino empire he built as an outgrowth of COMDEX, his computer trade show, the world’s first and largest, started in 1979, Adelson is known in the Jewish community for footing much of the bill for the Taglit-Birthright program, which sends young people to Israel for the first time, for sponsoring Jewish education, and, more broadly, supporting Republican political candidates.

In interviews, Adelson, the son of immigrants, said he worked many odd jobs, including driving a taxi and selling shaving kits, before becoming successful later in life. Adelson has said he was a life-long Democrat until a bad experience dealing with unions, as he expanded his convention business in Las Vegas, which ultimately led to building his own, non-union, casino, and siding with Republicans against union-backed Democrats.

Las Vegas Sands, whose shares actually rose on the news of the hacking, has a market capitalization of $64 billion. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranks Adelson as the world’s 10th-wealthiest person, with a $37 billion fortune.

On Tuesday, Sands Corp. spokesman Ron Reese said, in a statement: “Company-operated websites have been hacked, as have some office productivity systems in the U.S. The company is working closely with the appropriate law enforcement agencies to determine who initiated the hacking activity. In addition, the company is using its IT experts to assess the damage and return the systems to full operations.”