I think the argument was that he did precisely that. Yet history paints him as a great inventor (he was, and filed a lot of patents), and most people likely think of him as a "good/nice guy" which he may or may not have been.
Electrocuting dogs, cats, horses, and even an elephant, says a lot more about you as a human being than the person you're trying to discredit by electrocuting dogs, cats, horses, and even an elephant.
"The war of the currents (sometimes called battle of the currents) was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents
Electrocuting an Elephant seems to have occurred a decade after the war of currents January 17, 1903.
So he had even less justification for electrocuting the elephant than trying to discredit Tesla, and he was even older and should have known better. That makes him an even worse human being in my book. Don't fuck with elephants!
