Attempts at development and marketing[edit]
By November of 1934 Tesla was attempting (unsuccessfully) to obtain funding from J. P. Morgan's son, Jack Morgan.[16] The idea of Tesla possibly having a new type of weapon and his further offer to give it to the League of Nations as a way to prevent future war was looked on as alarming security threat by one US diplomat, a view not shared by his government.[17] In 1935 the Soviet Union, through the US Amtorg Trading Corporation, paid Tesla $25,000 for detailed plans, specification, and complete information on the method and apparatus but it is unclear whether a physical device was ever produced.[18][13] Tesla also attempted to get funding for his device in 1937, sending a paper ("New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy Through Natural Media") outlining his plans to the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Yugoslavia.[13] United Kingdom considered Tesla's offer to sell the device to them for $30 million dollars, maybe with the idea that even hinting they had a super weapon would be a deterrent to Adolf Hitler, but by 1938 they had dropped all interest.[19]

During this period Tesla claimed that efforts had been made to steal the invention saying his room had been entered and his papers had been scrutinized, but the thieves, or spies, left empty-handed. He said that there was no danger that his invention could be stolen for he had at no time committed any part of it to paper. The blueprint for the Teleforce weapon was all in his mind.[20]

In 1937, at at his birthday press conference Tesla was asked about his weapon and made the claim, "But it is not an experiment... I have built, demonstrated and used it. Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world."[2] At the 1940 birthday press conference an 84 year old Tesla offered to develop his weapon for the US but there was no interest in his offer.