After Tesla returned to New York City from Colorado Springs in 1900 he sought venture capitalists to fund what he thought was revolutionary wireless communication and electric power delivery system using the Earth as the conductor.

At the end of 1900 he gained the attention of financier J. P. Morgan who agreed to fund a pilot project based on Tesla's theories capable of transmitting messages, telephony, and even facsimile images across the Atlantic to England and to ships at sea.

Tesla's decision in July 1901 to scale up the facility and add his ideas of wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's new radio based telegraph system was met with Morgan's refusal to fund the changes.

"[3][4] In June 1902 Tesla started to move his laboratory from Manhattan into a partially completed Wardenclyffe but funding problems continued to plague the project with prospective investors unable or unwilling to invest and a 1903 downturn on Wall Street.

[5] In May 1905, Tesla's patents on alternating current motors and other methods of power transmission expired, halting royalty payments and causing a severe reduction in the funds he had to put toward the Wardenclyffe Project.

They initiated the Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum fund-raising campaign on the Indiegogo crowdfunding site, to raise funding to buy the Wardenclyffe property and restore the facility.

[13] On May 13, 2014, The Oatmeal published a comic called "What It's Like to Own a Model S, Part 2," in which he requested a further donation of $8 million from Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk in order to propel the museum toward completion.

[18][19] Wardenclyffe is not currently open to the public year-round, but the center offers seasonal events on the grounds as well as traveling educational programs, film screenings and exhibits throughout the year.