It's not exactly proof of character but it's pretty easy to verify that Edison's patent of DC Electricity was NOT novel or new as a concept but did allow him to create a monopoly and massively enrich himself while also increasing costs on the average person of his time.

~~This is lended to by the fact that in children's books and schools in the USA Edison was portrayed as some magical fictional character who tied a key to a kite to invent electricity. Clearly there is a campaign made to make him look like the hero he isn't.~~ Nah that was Franklin.

But it doesn't stop there, Edison had many patents that almost all built on the works of others going back decades, although I do think that he did more work than he stole on audio recording and transmitting, but he also patented the Telegraph like a hundred times even though the Cook and Wheatstone Electric Telegraph existed over 50 years earlier: a time before Edison was even born.

He was an OK inventor but he was a cutthroat businessman.