In fact at the wars end it was the US Army that took away the tape technology to the USA, where it was researched and made into the commercial items of tape and recording machines that became industry standard (mostly RCA?) I believe it was Bing Crosby who was a major investor of this right at the beginning and went on to make most of his fortune from that business.
Les Paul did not invent recording tape he more or least invented the technique for Multi track recording, which was subsequently adopted by all the studios, again this was at the behest of Bing Crosby who gave him an early Ampex machine.