Nikola Tesla was contacted by a representative of the Soviet Union, on behalf of Lenin, who believed the electrification of the country was crucial to the success of communism. Lenin appears to have been interested in Tesla’s idea of distributing wireless power over vast distances. Tesla wrote in 1919: “Only recently an odd-looking gentleman called on me with the object of enlisting my services in the construction of world transmitters in some distant land. ‘We have no money,’ he said, ‘but carloads of solid gold, and we give you a liberal amount.’ I told him I wanted to see first what will be done with inventions in America, and this ended the interview.”
