“We’re doing God’s work,” said William Ackman, the hedge fund manager, on CNBC this week. He was referring to his $1 billion bet against Herbalife, the company that he accuses of being an illegal pyramid scheme.

For the two years that Ackman has been “short” Herbalife, it has been the most entertaining of business stories. Carl Icahn and Daniel Loeb — both, like Ackman, activist investors — made a grand show of buying Herbalife stock. The stock went up, meaning Icahn and Loeb were making money while Ackman was losing it. Icahn called Ackman a “crybaby in the schoolyard.” Then the two men kissed and made up at a CNBC conference.

Ackman made lengthy presentations laying out his evidence that Herbalife was a pyramid scheme. He set up a website dedicated to exposing it. He raised enough of a stink that both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice opened investigations. Herbalife fought back with its own battery of P.R. people and lobbyists. The company adamantly denies being a pyramid scheme. Since the middle of last year, however, it has failed to meet Wall Street’s expectations. Now Herbalife’s stock is way down. Although Ackman is now making money on his Herbalife bet, he is not satisfied. He expects the stock to go to zero.

In a way, the ongoing Ackman-Herbalife story is a little like the coverage of a hotly contested political campaign. The horse-race aspect is so entertaining that sometimes more serious issues get short shrift. In this case, the issue is not whether Ackman is up or down or feuding with Icahn, but whether Herbalife — like dozens of other “multilevel marketing” companies — is, in fact, a pyramid scheme.