PHILANTHROPY

Sheldon Adelson

CEO and chairman, Las Vegas Sands

Number 21 on Forbes Magazine's 2018 list of the world's billionaires, Sheldon Adelson is also one of the most politically influential business personalities in the world, counting President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu among his friends. The CEO and chairman of Las Vegas Sands, the largest casino company in America, Adelson is the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Wales, who grew up sleeping on the floor of a Boston tenement. In 2017, Adelson gave $5 million to Trump's inaugural committee, reportedly the largest such donation in US history. Adelson is also the owner of the daily Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. Over the years, his generosity in funding Jewish causes has become legendary, with Birthright Israel and Israel's official Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem among institutions that have received millions of dollars from the Adelson Family Foundation he runs with his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)