In this instance, "trying to break his leg" may have been more like "got shoved and fell over" (Which to be fair, could be a reaction someone might have if their employee came into their office demanding several million dollars - who knows).
I don't know, I'd like to hear the other side of the story.
They also didn't 'steal' his code from the sounds of it. It sounds like he was in some form of verbal partnership to help develop a company (which they were clearly fairly far along with) but hadn't signed any real contracts. After two years someone isn't stealing your code, and you should be savvy enough to realise that the business world isn't really about being nice people - you need to cover your bases.
I agree that he should have signed a proper contract with them and not rely on verbal agreements (but after reading little bit about him online he seems to be some sort of extreme libertarian, he doesn't believe in lawyers and contracts, just in voluntary exchanges).
But that doesn't mean it's not a bit evil for the company to just throw him away after using his name and technology to get people invest in them.
The company has hastily deleted all his code and replaced it with new repositories starting from scratch so apparently they are also at least little bit worried he might legally be entitled to own part of the company.
If he were attacked like I think he wanted it to sound then a lawsuit would probably get him the money he wanted