Scientific elites are one of the most indispensable pillars of a country development. For this, retention or attraction of elites is considered as one of the main priorities of the country. However, the statistics show the country's highly undesirable situation in terms of emigration of elites. Due to the importance of the issue, in recent years, the Iran's National Elite Foundation (INEF) has been established to address and improve the situation of elites. Understanding the way through INEF and its bureaucracy represented in the elites' minds could lead to the understanding of their subjective world, as well as the recognition of the INEF's impacts quality. Therefore, in this study, we tried to explore the elites' experience of confronting the bureaucracy of INEF. To do so, through using qualitative methodology and grounded theory, 11 intensive interviews with elites were conducted. Participants were chosen according to the purposive and theoretical sampling, and then open, axial and selective coding was done. Findings consisted of 15 main categories, 36 subcategories and 317 concepts. Finally, the final core category was extracted. The results indicated the constant and diverse tensions originated from bureaucratic structure, have made elites alienated from INEF. Finally, the results were presented and discussed in the form of paradigmatic and the theoretical schematic model.