Edison wanted to power the world with DC electricity. While Edison was a highly motivated inventor, and a genius, he was 100% wrong about DC current being useful to power the world. It would have never worked.
Tesla knew the future would be AC current like we use today, and he was obviously right.
But Edison had too much invested in DC technology to have Tesla win the battle. So through bribery and marketing, he proceeded to demonstrate that AC electricity was too dangerous to be useful. He arranged public demonstrations of various animals being killed by huge doses of AC current. He even killed an elephant with AC power.
But then he went too far. He arranged to electrocute a death row inmate using an electric chair. His engineering was terribly wrong on the project, and he proceeded to burn, fry, and torture the victim several times before it actually killed him.
After that, Edison became a staunch opponent of capital punishment, and became a "kinder and gentler" businessman. He said it was his biggest regret of his entire life.