“We know what Yahoo is worth to us. We offered a lot of money: $44 billion, it is not a lot of euros anymore. If their board thinks that’s fair, great. If not, we’ll move forward,” Mr Ballmer said after an address at an information technology event.

He did not explain what he meant by moving forward. Mr Ballmer later told reporters “time is money. We made clear in the last letter we sent” to Yahoo’s board. “We’ll see what happens.” Yahoo faces a Saturday deadline to respond to Microsoft. Asked whether Microsoft could make a bid for Google, Mr Ballmer said in part that he did not think the Internet company would be interested.