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Elizabeth Uihlein
Status
Born in 1945. Living in Lake Bluff, Illinois.
Criminal status: No personal convictions; Uline faced immigration law allegations over its B1 visa worker shuttle program, with no criminal charges filed as of 2026
Summary
Elizabeth Uihlein co-founded Uline with her husband Richard in 1980, starting in their basement and building it into one of North America's largest distributors of shipping, packaging, and industrial supplies, with over 42,000 products and approximately $8 billion in annual revenue. She serves as the company's president.
Since the mid-2010s, Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein have emerged as among the most influential conservative political megadonors in the United States. Together they have directed more than $400 million to Republican candidates and causes over the years, including the funding of election denial groups, far-right Congress members, and anti-democratic political organizations.
Business Relationships
Elizabeth Uihlein co-founded Uline with her husband Richard, who serves as the company's CEO while she serves as president. She also operates the LUMW Foundation, a private foundation that primarily supports organizations in Chicago's northern suburbs and Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. Together with Richard, she directs philanthropic giving through the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, the couple's primary charitable vehicle, which made over $40 million in grants from 2013 to 2016.
Ownership
Elizabeth Uihlein co-owns Uline as a privately held company alongside her husband Richard, who serves as CEO. As president, she oversees the day-to-day operations of the company. Uline remains entirely private, with no public shareholders, giving the couple full and unilateral control over company decisions and labor practices.
Family & Heirs
Elizabeth is married to Richard Uihlein, CEO of Uline and her co-founder. The couple has been together since co-founding Uline in 1980. They are part-time residents of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, where they own property and operate EAU Holdings, a company that runs a local restaurant and lodge.
Evidence
2015-10-12 - 😈 - Elizabeth Uihlein cited for illegally clear-cutting trees in violation of Vilas County shoreline ordinances near Rest Lake, Wisconsin
2016-12-31 - 😇 - Uihleins' Ed Uihlein Family Foundation donated $175K to Teach for America Chicago, supporting teacher recruitment in low-income communities
2017-03-28 - 😇 - Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein established a $2 million endowment trust to fund permanent maintenance of Manitowish Waters bike trails
2018-03-09 - 😇 - Elizabeth Uihlein pledged $1.15M to Wisconsin DNR via Manitowish Waters Bike Trail Inc for public bike trail infrastructure
2018-12-31 - 😈 - Uihleins' Ed Uihlein Family Foundation funded Heartland Institute $354K from 2014 to 2018 to promote climate change denial
2020-10-31 - 😈 - Uihleins donated $4.3M to Tea Party Patriots, which organized the January 6 March to Save America rally that preceded the Capitol attack
2022-08-01 - 😈 - Uihleins funded far-right 2020 election denial members of Congress including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, and Mo Brooks
2022-10-26 - 😈 - Uihleins funded election denial gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and Nevada Secretary of State candidate Jim Marchant through Restoration PAC
2023-09-15 - 😈 - Uihleins built extensive dark money network and influence machine to fund election denial groups and 2020 election fraud disinformation
2024-07-15 - 😈 - Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein donated a combined $10M to Trump's Make America Great Again reelection super PAC, making them its second-biggest backers
2025-01-09 - 😈 - Uline, run by Elizabeth Uihlein as president, accused of exploiting B1 visa program to bring Mexican warehouse workers to the US at below-American wages
2026-07-01 - 😈 - Uihleins donated $50.7M in the 2026 election cycle to GOP candidates, anti-abortion campaigns, and efforts to restrict LGBTQ rights
Analysis
Elizabeth Uihlein built a packaging empire from a basement startup and became one of the wealthiest self-made women in America. Her documented record since 2015 is dominated by an escalating commitment to funding political causes that include the dismantling of democratic processes: funding the Tea Party Patriots group that organized the January 6 rally, backing candidates who contested the 2020 election results, and building an extensive dark money network to sustain election denial infrastructure. By 2026, the Uihleins had donated more than $50 million in a single election cycle to candidates whose platforms include rolling back reproductive rights and LGBTQ protections.
A striking contradiction runs through the record: the Uihleins publicly backed politicians who campaigned on strict immigration enforcement, while Uline -- the company Elizabeth runs as president -- has repeatedly sought foreign labor for its own workforce. In 2019, Uline sued the federal government after it rejected a petition for an H-1B visa for a foreign software engineer, even as Elizabeth wrote to customers that she was "an American first" who cared about American jobs. The company was later found to have operated a multi-year program bringing Mexican warehouse workers into the United States on B1 training visas to perform regular work at below-American wages, a program that ran for several years before being discontinued in 2024 after press exposure.
The story continued into 2026, when a Milwaukee alderwoman running for Wisconsin secretary of state publicly called on state officials to investigate the company's visa practices after a former worker described the arrangement on the record.
Elizabeth's own conduct toward workers and job applicants has drawn separate scrutiny. In 2018, Wisconsin regulators found probable cause that she and Uline refused to hire an executive candidate because she had lupus, after Uihlein personally asked the candidate about her steroid dosage during the interview. Three years later, as Uline's pandemic-era sales surged and outstripped its workforce, she personally emailed Wisconsin's governor urging him to immediately cut expanded federal unemployment benefits so the company could fill 500 open positions.
Her philanthropic giving -- a teacher recruitment grant, a $2 million trail-maintenance endowment, and a community bike trail donation -- is dwarfed in scale and consequence by the political spending.
Questions
Elizabeth Uihlein is listed as a political donor alongside her husband on most records. How much of the political strategy reflects her independent judgment versus shared decision-making with Richard? She writes regular letters in Uline's company catalog about deregulation and smaller government -- what does her vision for American governance look like beyond the candidates she funds? The B1 visa scheme and the 2018 disability-discrimination finding both raise a direct question about labor ethics: what standards apply to workers and job applicants at Uline, and who set them?
Redemption Arc
The trajectory since 2020 points in one direction. Donations that once went to mainstream Republican candidates have shifted toward election deniers, far-right Congress members, and anti-democratic causes, with the total amounts growing each cycle. A path toward accountability would require acknowledging the harm done to workers in the B1 visa program and to job applicants like the one who filed the disability-discrimination complaint, withdrawing financial support from candidates whose campaigns are built on disinformation, and directing philanthropic resources at a scale proportionate to the political spending.