Call it the Bill and Carl Show.

William Ackman and Carl Icahn — two Wall Street hedge fund giants — duke it out over a nutritional supplements company called Herbalife. Arguing that the company is a pyramid scheme, Ackman stakes $1 billion on a wager that the stock will go to zero. Icahn, calling him a “crybaby in the schoolyard,” buys as many shares in Herbalife as he can.

The two stand their ground for years. Then they publicly make up. And now, there’s a twist: On Friday, Ackman said that bankers recently offered to sell him Icahn’s shares.

In an interview, Ackman said he was contacted this month by bankers at the Jefferies Group, the investment bank, who told him they were planning to put together a trade to buy out Herbalife’s biggest shareholder (that’s Icahn, who owns an 18.3 percent stake). The bankers asked Ackman if he was open to buying stock to “cover” his short position, which would in effect reverse some of his bet against Herbalife.

“I said absolutely not,” Ackman said. But he offered to pick up a few million shares if the bankers struggled to find enough willing buyers, he said, adding that he would be willing to lose money to get Icahn out of the stock.

But that wasn’t the only twist on Friday. Late in the afternoon, Icahn denied any intention to sell his shares in Herbalife in a statement, accusing Ackman of being “blind to the facts” and wrongly speaking on his behalf. Icahn also said that he had bought another 2.3 million shares of Herbalife on Friday.

It is all part of the latest act in a four-year drama involving the two investors that has riveted and at times bewildered Wall Street. Such well-known investors as George Soros and Daniel Loeb have made cameo appearances as well.

In July, it all appeared to be drawing to a finale. The Federal Trade Commission announced tough sanctions against Herbalife, accusing it of “deceiving hundreds of thousands of hopeful people” and calling into question its distribution practices and the ways it generates revenue by relying on customers to sell products to friends and relatives. The regulator also fined Herbalife $200 million and required it to hire an outside monitor and change its business practices in the United States.

The news was a moral victory for Ackman, who has argued for years that Herbalife was deceiving customers. But it also seemed that Icahn had won the war over the future of the company because the FTC stopped short of shutting it down.

And Icahn wasted little time relishing the apparent victory. In a statement issued the same day, he indicated that he might even be interested in doubling down on his position.

Herbalife said it would let him increase his ownership stake to as much as 35 percent. The company also said that it had been “under attack by an intransigent short-seller hellbent on a misinformation campaign designed to destroy our company.”

Theatrics are not unusual for Ackman and Icahn. Both built multibillion-dollar hedge funds and their reputations by being brash and making contrarian, sometimes controversial, statements about the companies they invest in or against.

The two men have traded barbs in the past over other business disputes, too.

At an investment conference in Manhattan last year, the two appeared to agree to disagree on their latest dispute, publicly embracing on stage.

“It’s not about winning,” Ackman said at the time, but quickly added, “I would love to get Carl out of this stock.”

In his interview on Friday, however, Ackman said that the two of them now seemed to be in agreement about Herbalife, adding that Icahn’s public comments last month about pursuing opportunities for Herbalife was a “head fake.”