Today would have been Nikola Tesla’s 158th birthday. A lot of people are celebrating, but it’s going to be tough to beat Elon Musk’s gift. According to the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, Musk just donated $1 million and a Tesla Supercharging Station to the organization.
Musk is the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, as well as a real life Tony Stark. During the initial crowdfunding campaign to buy Tesla’s original lab at Wardenclyffe, Musk donated $2,500 to the effort. The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman, who helped raise the money to buy the lab recently, drew a comic calling on Musk to donate the full $8 million it’s going to take to build a science center on the site.
It didn’t take long for Musk to reply on Twitter:
@Oatmeal I would be happy to help
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2014
Of course the organization has a long way to go, and $1 million isn’t $8 million (that math checks out, right?) but this is still an incredibly generous gift from Musk. Which seems to be his thing lately; he also generously made all of the patents for Tesla Motors open source to encourage innovation and reduce car emissions.
Now we just need seven other crazy rich science-loving people to jump in on this thing. Bill Gates, you’re up I guess?
(via Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe on Facebook, image via Maurizio Pesce)
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