> svg generation takes a completely different code branch compared to pdf
> in ox-latex.el. I am not sure why. Hopefully, someone more familiar with
> ox-latex and LaTeX in general can chime in.

Just found this in the source [1], maybe it is already fixed?

[1] 
https://github.com/bzg/org-mode/blob/b428839f1b5b772d391c1e6bdd80e3f5e23b4441/etc/ORG-NEWS#L768