Was Tesla really smarter then Edison??
I would say without hesitation twice that YES, Tesla was superior to Edison and perhaps one of the most innovative and important minds of all time, being able to make contributions to science that today are still vital to the development of multiple projects.
In fact even when the best beginnings of Tesla were by the hand of Edison and the latter became the head of Tesla is remarkable that as that film phrase "The student surpassed the teacher" there that at the end of the careers of both these were assiduous enemies and scientific rivals.
Tesla was such an incredible genius basically because he always thought outside the box, that is to say that he was not dedicated to creating and developing better devices and machines that already existed but to creating new and future ways in which energy, science and technology could be used, hence even today there are many conspiracy theories that relate Tesla's ingenuity with aliens and other factors that would have been the cause of his incredible intelligence.
Edison was a genius in many ways as well, but the fact of not focusing on innovation for me determines that Tesla has been superior, without any detriment.