Nikola Tesla's 158th-birthday present

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a Serbian-American engineer and unsung inventor who helped pioneer the use of electricity, among other achievements. A campaign is underway, aided by entrepreneur Elon Musk, to turn Tesla's last remaining laboratory into a museum.

Cartoonist Matthew Inman, founder of humor website The Oatmeal, has celebrated Tesla online and in 2012 launched a crowdfunded effort to save Tesla's last remaining laboratory.

Inman's online paean to Tesla praised him for inventing an alternating-current electrical system but claimed he was overshadowed by rival Thomas Edison, who received credit for inventing the light bulb. "Without question, Tesla was a genius," he wrote.

Inman's campaign raised more than $1.3 million to buy the site of Tesla's former Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham, New York, on the north coast of Long Island.

Now Inman is trying to raise money to renovate the old Tesla lab and turn it into a museum. In a comic strip earlier this year, he made a plea to Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, which is named for Nikola Tesla. Musk is seen here with then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Tesla Motors event in 2008.

On Thursday, Tesla's birthday, Inman wrote that Musk, who is also CEO of private spaceflight company SpaceX, pledged $1 million to the cause.

Hours after Inman's Tesla S review and plea, Musk sent a Twitter message saying he would "would be happy to help." Thursday, Inman said he made good on the promise.

• The founder of Tesla Motors is giving $1 million to a museum for its namesake


• Volunteers raised money to save the last remaining lab of inventor Nikola Tesla


• They need several million more, though, to restore it and build a museum


• Matthew Inman, creator of the Oatmeal, announced the donation Thursday

(CNN) -- On Nikola Tesla's 158th birthday, it was the effort to build a museum in the influential scientist's honor that got the gift.

Elon Musk, the magnate and inventor behind electric-car company Tesla Motors, has pledged $1 million to the Tesla Science Center in Shoreham, New York, on the site of Wardenclyffe, Tesla's only remaining laboratory.

And it's all due, at least in large part, to an appeal from a webcomic creator.

Matthew Inman, whose comic and website the Oatmeal draws millions of readers each month, wrote Thursday that he had spoken to Musk and confirmed the pledge.

"So, I had a call with Elon Musk earlier this week ..." Inman wrote on his site.

He said Musk told him two things during the phone call: that he would install a Tesla charging station in the museum's parking lot and that he'll donate the million to the effort to fully restore and operate it.

Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk had already given $2,500 toward the museum effort.

The Tesla Science Center confirmed the news on its Twitter feed.

"Elon Musk: from the deepest wells of my geeky little heart: thank you," Inman wrote. "This is amazing news. And it's Nikola Tesla's 158th birthday. Happy Nikola Tesla Day."

In one of his comics, Inman compared Tesla favorably to his better-known contemporary -- and rival -- Thomas Edison. Then, in 2012, he joined forces with an effort to buy Wardenclyffe and turn it into a Tesla museum.

A fundraiser he started on Indiegogo, cheekily named "Let's Build a G**damn Tesla Museum," raised a whopping $1.3 million, more than enough to buy the property. Since then, the foundation has been raising the roughly $8 million needed to restore the site and build the museum itself.

That's why this year, in a comic reviewing his new Tesla Model S, Inman devoted part of it to calling on Musk to help out. Though Tesla Motors is named in honor of the scientist, whose work included early electrical experiments, the Tesla family is in no way involved with the company.

Nikola Tesla's former laboratory in Shoreham, New York, had been owned by a photo processor.

Within hours of the comic being posted, Musk, who had donated $2,500 to the initial effort, sent Inman a simple message on Twitter: "I would be happy to help."

A representative for Tesla Motors did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Born in 1856, Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer and inventor who helped pioneer the use of electricity, among other achievements. At Wardenclyffe, Tesla worked on developing wireless communications, more than 100 years before anyone would hold a smartphone, and methods for delivering clean, free energy.

But his work lost much of its financial backing after inventor Guglielmo Marconi sent radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean, and the lab site was lost in 1915.

Tesla died at age 86 in 1943, in debt and living in a New York hotel. His legacy and work languished in relative obscurity for decades thereafter.

But in recent years, people in the science community have begun championing him as the true innovator of his age, saying that if his work had been properly funded, it may have led to dramatic changes in the way utilities like phone and electric service are delivered today.