In an e-mail to the man he’d become convinced was undermining his electric-car company, Elon Musk pulled no punches. “You’re a horrible human being,” the Tesla C.E.O. wrote to Martin Tripp, a former engineer who, Musk alleged in a memo to employees, had conducted “damaging sabotage to our operations,” including making “direct code changes” to Tesla’s manufacturing system and sending “large amounts of highly sensitive data to unknown third parties.” A day after sending the memo, Musk formalized his claims in a lawsuit.

But Tripp fought back, telling The Washington Post in an interview that he was in fact a whistleblower who had seen some “really scary things” at Tesla, including cars fit with batteries that had been dangerously damaged. (Tesla denied his claims.) And now it seems their pitched battle will continue in court, with Tripp filing his own lawsuit late Tuesday, claiming that Musk and Tesla defamed him. In the filing, Tripp claims that comments Musk made about him—in tweets, in memos, in statements to the press—are untrue, have caused him distress, and have resulted in “numerous threats to his personal safety,” even forcing him to relocate. “Our client . . . has been wronged by Tesla in more ways than one,” Robert D. Mitchell, an attorney for Tripp, told the Verge on Tuesday. Tesla, he added, made “several bewildering allegations against Mr. Tripp” and “has made numerous, highly publicized false and defamatory statements about Mr. Tripp to the media.” (Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.)

The back-and-forth could be called tame for Musk—a man so rabidly devoted to defending his reputation that he may have personally silenced a blogger critical of Tesla—if not for a bizarre claim from the car company: that Tripp had made a violent threat regarding its Gigafactory battery plant. The tip, a Tesla spokesperson said, had come from a friend of Tripp’s, and the company had subsequently notified police. But according to Bloomberg, which reviewed a 10-page police report regarding the incident, police quickly determined that Tripp, whom they described as “visibly shaken and crying,” was unarmed. “There was no finding in the investigation of a threat,” Gerald Antinoro, the Nevada sheriff who oversaw the investigation, said in an interview. He added that “The information we had came from inside [Tesla], and they claim to not know who called.” In his countersuit, Tripp addresses the shooter claim, arguing that the car company “provided inconsistent responses to law enforcement” about the alleged caller. “These reports raise serious questions for Tesla,” __ Stuart Meissner,__ another lawyer for Tripp, told Bloomberg. “And we intend to follow up on those questions both with the authorities and otherwise.” (A Tesla spokesperson declined Bloomberg’s request for comment.)

Per Bloomberg, the Tesla employee who received the tip was interviewed by an officer from the Southern Nevada Counter Terrorism Center. According to the police report, the Tesla employee said the tipster was concerned due to Tripp’s “volatility,” but “had never heard Tripp directly make any threats regarding the Tesla Gigafactory.” The tipster’s identity is still unknown, as is the nature of his relationship to Tripp and to Tesla. What does seem clear is that Tripp could potentially become a huge thorn in Tesla’s side; in addition to the lawsuit, he is scheduled to meet with the S.E.C. regarding the abuses he claims to have witnessed. In a complaint filed with the agency, Tripp said the company had made several “material omissions and misstatements” to its investors. (Tesla declined CNBC’s request for comment on the complaint.) And as Tesla struggles to live up to the expectations of those investors, racing against the clock to produce enough Model 3 cars to meet demand, the bad press couldn’t come at a worse time.