Which makes me want to share my new favorite conspiracy theory about the movie(you know a story is good when there are wild theories about an event that was entirely imaginary in the first place, that is a sign of first class world building). anyway,

The entire tesla arc never happened, the whole thing was an elaborate con. "but " you exclaim, "we saw the machine, the hats, the trip to america", to which I reply this is a case of second person narrative the only source for this information is the diary(which the movie dutifully animates) and the diary was planted, the diary was the con.