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By John F. Wasik

World-changing inventions made the inventor Nikola Tesla a celebrity in his own time, but something otherworldly makes him transcend his era and remain a perpetual beacon for our civilization 70 years after his death.

He’ s now an immortal rock star, an icon for billionaires, cyberpunks, artists and“ maker” inventors who are still fiddling with everyday machines in their basements and garages. Search engine designers, energy czars, musicians, artists and creators everywhere feel his influence. He’ s our Leonardo, the Shakespeare of invention.

A car, a rock band and a unit of magnetic measurement have been named after Tesla. You can talk to anyone who’ s enjoyed any mad scientist scene in any science fiction or horror movie and see his Tesla coil pulsing electricity like a dynamic spider web of electrons. Tesla is energy, meters, dials, lightning bolts and the robot-drone master. He’ s patron saint and mystic, discoverer and wronged entrepreneur. A prophet dishonored in his own time, but revered in ours.

To some of his latter-day followers, it’ s as if Tesla never died, instead becoming a techno-mystic deity. A few years ago, actor Nicolas Cage described preparing for his latest role by immersing himself in the character of Tesla, who’ s appeared directly or indirectly in hundreds of movies, usually accompanied by the dancing sparks of his Tesla coil.

Tesla broke the rules to become one of the most successful inventors of all time. To call him just an inventor, though, is to understate his thorough understanding of how energy, science and world peace could co-exist. His was a mind burning with powerful ideas that have resonated and become amplified since his passing in 1943.

He’ s now seen as a visionary who wanted to marry technology with world peace.

Few of Tesla’ s peers have attracted such devotion, making him an object of cultlike veneration. New Agers insist that he talked with alien worlds( or was an alien himself), while conspiracy theorists think his idea of a“ death ray” that could blast planes out of the sky was eventually developed by the Pentagon, and that the government has been keeping it a secret for nearly 70 years. Over the years, Tesla’ s technology has been blamed for everything from destroying Siberian forests to Hurricane Katrina.

Today, there are few stronger, sexier brands than Tesla. Year by year, Tesla’ s popularity grows as the memory of his contemporaries— George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison and J. P. Morgan— recedes even further into history.

In our day, Tesla’ s achievements have come to overshadow those of his nemesis

18 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2017 | www. MoAF. org