My Accent Is My Only Trait

Dr. Nikola Tesla did not sign bad contracts. He signed an excellent contract with Westinghouse to bring AC power to America. Westinghouse was the big competitor against Edison Electric, which ran DC power. Thomas Edison was a massive prick and Edison Electric went around doing its best to convince everyone that AC power was dangerous, most infamously by electrocuting an elephant to death and developing the first execution-style electric chair using AC power. All of this cemented in the mind of the public that AC power was dangerous and deadly, while DC power was somehow safer.

By 1890, Westinghouse was in trouble. George Westinghouse went to Tesla and laid out the truth: if he honored the royalty contracts that he’d agreed to pay Tesla, he would go bankrupt. So Tesla tore up the contracts. He walked away from millions, maybe billions of dollars because he believed that wireless electricity should be free to the world. Westinghouse went on to bring AC power to homes across America.