Martin Eberhard has sought a voluntary dismissal of a libel suit he filed against current Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to the San Jose Business Journal.

The suit contained several causes of actions and allegations. Eberhard said that Tesla deliberately hurt the car he ordered. But the main allegation was that Musk tried to fashion himself as a founder of the company and reduce Eberhard's role.

Considering that a lot of the delays and technical problems occurred while Eberhard was chairman, proving libel would have been an uphill slog.

And, as reported here in the early days of the lawsuit, both those guys got excited about electric sports cars after talking to Tom Gage at AC Propulsion and seeing his electric sports car. Tesla even licensed technology from AC.

So really, Eberhard was effectively saying it was he, not Musk, who came up with the idea of copying Gage first.

In any event,  it doesn't mean that the lawsuit won't come back. It's a voluntary dismissal. Who knows. Maybe he will sue for estoppel, and Musk will counter with latches or the "Unclean Hands" defense. (In the California Code of Civil Procedure, comebacks are a fact of life.) Eberhard's lawyer said more about the case comes out in September.