April 26 The three-week deadline passes without a Yahoo response.
May 3 Microsoft withdraws its bid for Yahoo. In a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer writes, "After giving this week's conversations further thought, it is clear to me that it is not sensible for Microsoft to take our offer directly to your shareholders. This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer. Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft."