Beautiful Roadways

10 Ways Edison Treated Tesla Like a Jerk

Thomas Edison has over a thousand patents in his name. Some of them are even based on his own ideas. But more often than not, he was working off another great innovator’s findings, and tinkering until he produced something that could make a buck or two. He is often praised for having invented a number of household items we take for granted, and couldn’t live without. But considerably less credit is actually given to the genius scientists and inventors who worked under his employ to make him rich (and a household name). One of those men is Nikola Tesla, who got an incredibly short end of the stick, and whose brilliance often goes unacknowledged and under-praised beneath Edison’s blinding overcast. Here are ten ways in which Edison was a real jerk to Tesla.

10

Disrespectful

Towards the end of Edison’s life, he was quoted as saying he wished he respected Tesla and his work more than he had. Too bad, at that point the damage had been done: Tesla died broke and lonely, while Edison died wealthy and with great self-esteem. While they had worked together, Edison had often called his ideas “impractical” or mocked them (if he wasn’t plain threatened by them). It seemed Edison knew that he had this brilliant young mind under his thumb from the moment he came to America to work for him. (At that point he already had a few patents in his name, for devices that operated by rotating magnetic fields.)