Tesla Motors just made The Oatmeal's day, thanks to the generosity of CEO Elon Musk.
The Oatmeal is popular webcomic run by Matthew Inman, who has been hard at work trying to bring to life a Nikola Tesla-themed museum at the site of the inventor's former laboratory in Shoreham, New York. Inman raised $1.37 million on Indiegogo in 2012, which was enough to save the existing laboratory property known as Wardenclyffe from becoming a shopping center, but not enough to actually construct the museum.
Enter Musk, who today - which happens to be Nikola Tesla's 158th birthday - pledged to donate $1 million to the museum's development. Musk will also build a Tesla Supercharger station in the museum's parking lot, so Telsa-driving folk can come to pay homage to the inventor for whom their cars are named after… and charge their vehicles while they do so.
"Elon Musk: from the deepest wells of my geeky little heart: thank you. This is amazing news," wrote Inman in a blog post today. "Happy Nikola Tesla Day."
Don't start planning the family vacation just yet, however. According to Inman's initial request to Musk, the Tesla Science Foundation needs approximately $8 million in order to turn the land it now owns into a fully functional Tesla Museum. But even that might not be enough.
"It's been a year since we officially closed on Wardenclyffe, and after getting countless estimates from site planners, architects, and museum curators from all around the world, we determined that $8M is the bare minimum to build, staff, and maintain a Nikola Tesla Museum. While we'd be grateful for any amount, any less than $8M would pretty much leave us in the same boat we're in now," Inman wrote in May.
At the time, Inman asked Musk to donate the full amount — "help finish what we started, and finally, gracefully, and with unfettered awesomeness, help us build a goddamn Tesla Musem," he cajoled. Musk responded that he was "happy to help," but we didn't know what type of commitment he was willing to provide until today.
Of course, we suppose that Inman could attempt to persuade anyone who successfully hacks a Tesla Model S at next week's SyScan conference to donate his or her $10,000 bounty to the cause. Seems fitting, no?