Tesla's Elon Musk is donating $1 million to the Tesla Science Center in New York to honor the inventor's legacy, CNN reported.
Marking Nikola Tesla's 158th birthday, the pledge will fund construction and operations of the center, which is on the site of Wardenclyffe, Tesla's only remaining laboratory.
The man behind a popular webcomic asked Musk to support the museum.
"Elon Musk: from the deepest wells of my geeky little heart: thank you," wrote Matthew Inman, creator of comic and website the Oatmeal, as quoted by CNN. "This is amazing news. And it's Nikola Tesla's 158th birthday. Happy Nikola Tesla Day."
Inman started the museum effort in 2012, launching an Indiegogo fundraiser called "Let's Build a G**damn Tesla Museum." The crowdfunding campaign brought in $1.3 million, which paid for the laboratory site. Around $8 million is needed altogether to restore the Wardenclyffe site.
Musk, who named Tesla Motors after the influential scientist but is not actually connected with the Tesla family, has pledged both $1 million to the restoration effort and a Tesla charging station for the center's parking lot.
Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American engineer born in 1856, worked to develop wireless communications a century before the smartphone and also pioneered clean energy methods. His work was obscured for decades after his death in 1943. While the inventor died in poverty in New York, he has since been called a true innovator for his cutting-edge ideas.
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