Elon Musk Just Gave Nikola Tesla a $1 Million Birthday Present

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:

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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Glen Tickle

Glen is a comedian, writer, husband, and father. He won his third-grade science fair and is a former preschool science teacher, which is a real job.

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