as the novel coronavirus was blazing across an unvaccinated United States, Don Ahern’s Las Vegas hotel hosted the event, despite previously being scolded by state authorities for staging a beauty pageant. Nevada fined Ahern $10,930 for violating the governor’s executive orders banning mass gatherings.
Ahern certainly has the cash. In late 2022, he sold his company Ahern Rentals for $2 billion to publicly traded United Rentals, pocketing an estimated $600 million after taxes and paying down debts. Ahern also still owns Xtreme Manufacturing, which makes heavy-duty construction equipment like lifts and telehandlers, and a 51% stake in Snorkel, which makes aerial work platforms.
In September 2021, after Caesars Entertainment abruptly canceled a Qanon conference scheduled to take place at its convention center, Ahern’s hotel came to the rescue. Dubbed, the three-day October conference featured speakers such as Qanon promoters Jim and Ron Watkins, election denying sheriff and Fox News personality David Clarke, Jan. 6 promoter Jason Sullivan, and far-right Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers – a self-professed member of the Oath Keepers militia group – among others.
“He was in on the ground floor when Las Vegas really took off in the ‘90s,” says Michael Roth, the longtime editor of Rental Equipment Register, a trade publication magazine, who has known Ahern for decades. “He was dealing with all these contractors building these massive hotel-casinos. His approach was, we’ll put an actual branch right on your job site. We’ll put a trailer, with small equipment, a little yard with machines; it’ll be right on-site… At the time, that was extremely innovative.
Yet, Ahern Rentals emerged from bankruptcy in July 2013 with Ahern retaining his 97% equity interest. . Ahern and his brother chipped in $5 million personally and secured new debt financing to make the aggrieved creditors whole. “By delaying the bankruptcy proceedings, Don Ahern was able to buy time for the firm to normalize its earnings in a cyclical upswing,” said a New York Universityon Ahern Rentals’ bankruptcy. “Don Ahern was the biggest winner in the Ahern restructuring.
While Ahern still owns Xtreme and his 51% stake in Snorkel, he has no role in the firms’ day-to-day operations, leaving him plenty of time to be a political rainmaker, something he’s been moving into over the past few years.