Obviously if he wanted to "help out" he would have just donated the money to some good cause in the area, and this was all just a thinly veiled vacation. However, in certain areas of Africa (namely Zimbabwe and Botswana, I've spent time in both), they have more elephants than the ecosystem can really take. Hunting elephants in Botswana is all but encouraged (as long as it is done with proper permits of course), because they need help to control the population.

Elephants are not a threatened species everywhere, even though they struggle in some parts of Africa / the world.