Casino Magnate Billionaire Sheldon Adelson gave $25 million to Future 45, an anti-Hillary Clinton Super PAC, in a last-ditch effort to usher Donald Trump into the White House, and help down-ballot Republican races as well, Fox News reported Monday. The report suggested Adelson might come up with even more money to seal the deal later in the week.
Adelson, who put down $100 million in support of various Republican candidates in 2012, received no return on his investment at the time, which might explain why he has been reluctant to spend on the Trump campaign to begin with. Eventually, after months of promises and no delivery, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, ended up giving the Trump campaign “only” $5 million. But now, according to Fox News citing senior GOP sources, the couple appears to be betting the house on the candidate.
The Republican sources suggested what motivated the Adelsons’ sudden eagerness to support Trump was the FBI’s announcement last Friday that 650,000 additional emails related to Hillary Clinton had been discovered, which suddenly appeared to increase Trump’s chance for victory. In fact, a source close to the Adelsons predicted they would give as much as another $25 million before this week is out.
Interestingly, early on in the Republican primaries, both the Adelsons and the Ricketts family of Chicago (TD Ameritrade) supported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for the nomination, and the Ricketts actually spent millions on attempts to block Trump’s nomination.