Meet Miriam Adelson, the billionaire GOP donor who’s given $100 million to support Donald Trump’s campaign

Miriam Adelson with Donald Trump.

Miriam Adelson, the widow of Las Vegas Sands Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson, is one of the richest women in the US with an estimated net worth of $35.6 billion, according to Forbes.

The Adelsons have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to GOP super PACs, as well as Jewish and Israeli organizations, over the years. After Sheldon Adelson’s death in 2021, Miriam Adelson has continued to channel her fortune into reelecting Donald Trump as one of his wealthiest donors.

Here’s a closer look at Miriam Adelson’s background, wealth, and political leanings.

The Adelson Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

Miriam Adelson, 79, was born and raised in Israel and became a physician specializing in drug addiction.

Miriam Adelson.

After her mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces, during which she served as a medical officer, Miriam Adelson studied microbiology and genetics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, according to Jewish Virtual Library. She then earned her medical degree from the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences in Tel Aviv and served as chief internist in an emergency room at Tel Aviv’s Rokach Hospital.

In a 2023 video with International March of the Living, a Holocaust remembrance organization, Miriam Adelson spoke about being the daughter of Holocaust survivors and treating other survivors with numbers on their arms as a doctor in Israel.

She married Sheldon Adelson, who served as chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, in 1991.

Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson with a model of a Sands resort.

Miriam Adelson met Sheldon Adelson, CEO and chairman of the Las Vegas casino company, while visiting Rockefeller University in New York on an exchange program focused on treating drug addiction.

A college dropout and serial entrepreneur, Sheldon Adelson founded various businesses early in his career before cementing his fortune through trade shows. COMDEX, the Las Vegas technology trade show he launched in the 1970s, became a huge success with attendance peaking at around 225,000 people, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. SoftBank bought COMDEX and other smaller shows for $862 million in 1995, and Adelson used the payout to begin building his hotel and casino empire.

Both Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson had previously been married, and both had divorced in the 1980s.

They wed at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Hadassah magazine reported. They share two sons.

The Adelsons contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to Republican campaigns and super PACs.

Miriam Adelson and Sheldon Adelson at the 2012 presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Politico reported that Miriam Adelson was the top female donor in the 2012 election — when incumbent president Barack Obama faced Republican candidate Mitt Romney — giving around $46 million to Republican super PACs, while Sheldon Adelson donated around $50 million.

The New York Times reported in 2021 that the Adelsons’ contributions to GOP campaigns and organizations had totaled around half a billion dollars since 2010.

Through the Adelson Foundation, they donated large sums to Jewish and Israeli organizations.

Miriam Adelson and Sheldon Adelson at a Taglit-Birthright event in Israel.

Established in 2007, the Adelson Foundation’s mission is to “strengthen the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” according to its website.

The foundation has given $500 million to the Birthright Israel Foundation, which provides free trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. The Adelsons also donated $25 million to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, in 2011, and $10 million to Friends of the IDF in 2018.

The Adelsons have established two substance abuse treatment and research centers, one in Tel Aviv and one in Las Vegas.

Miriam Adelson also bought a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from Mark Cuban in 2023.

Miriam Adelson at a Dallas Mavericks game.

Cuban sold his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks for around $3.5 billion, but remains a minority owner.

She has been an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump.

Miriam Adelson and Sheldon Adelson at Donald Trump’s inauguration.

In 2016, the Adelsons donated over $38 million to Republican super PACs and congressional campaigns, including a $10 million contribution to the pro-Trump super PAC Future45, according to OpenSecrets.

When Trump was elected, Sheldon Adelson donated $5 million to help fund the inauguration festivities, and Miriam Adelson served as a finance vice-chair of the event.

As president, Trump carried out items on the Adelsons’ Israel agenda. He announced that the US would formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018. He also withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

In a 2019 article for Israel Hayom, an Israeli daily newspaper that she owns, Miriam Adelson praised Trump’s support for Israel and floated the idea of adding a “Book of Trump” to the Bible.

The Adelsons were Trump’s biggest donors during the 2020 election cycle, contributing $120 million to Trump’s campaign and GOP groups.

Trump awarded Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.

Donald Trump awarded Miriam Adelson the Presidential of Freedom.

Trump garnered controversy for comparing the Congressional Medal of Honor to the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version — it’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers, they are even in very bad shape because they have been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead,” Trump said of awarding Miriam Adelson.

Trump later clarified that when he said the nation’s highest civilian honor was “better,” he meant that it is less painful to be awarded since recipients don’t “generally have to suffer.”

Following her husband’s death in 2021, she remains one of Trump’s biggest donors.

Miriam Adelson with Donald Trump.

Sheldon Adelson died in 2021 at age 87 due to complications related to treatment for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Miriam Adelson has continued to donate to philanthropic and political causes. Ahead of the 2024 election, she has donated $100 million to a pro-Trump super PAC and made several public appearances with the former president.

In September, Miriam Adelson called Trump “a true friend of the Jewish people” while introducing him at an event in Las Vegas focused on antisemitism.

In his speech at the event, Trump said that “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss” if he loses the 2024 election and spoke about his relationship with Sheldon Adelson.

“Her husband would drive me crazy,” Trump said to Miriam Adelson. “‘You have to do this. You have to do that.’ You don’t know what I had to put up with.”