Paypal Inc

This post has been updated Media veteran Ross Levinsohn is expected to be named the permanent chief executive of Yahoo as early as today, signaling a new chapter for the struggling Internet company, according to one person with knowledge of the situation. Yahoo's board is meeting today, where its members are believed to be weighing the decision. [ Updated at 2:41 p.m.: A spokesman for the board, Charles Sipkins, declined to comment.] Levinsohn has served as Yahoo's interim chief executive since the May resignation of Scott Thompson, amid allegations that Thompson misrepresented his educational credentials.

Despite the long holiday break, hackers kept up their attacks, targeting Apple Inc. and Fox News before hacking PayPal Inc. on Tuesday in the latest rash of cyber strikes. As America celebrated its independence, hackers took control of Fox News' Twitter account and early Monday morning tweeted six messages to @foxnewspolitics' 34,000 followers stating that the president had been killed, according to Fox News. The tweets, which were noticed about 2 a.m., were deleted after Twitter suspended the account about seven hours later and returned control of it to Fox News.

Google Inc. may have gotten itself unfriended by Facebook. The Silicon Valley search giant will unveil a social networking feature this fall, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, confirming that the company was building a product to put it in direct competition with Facebook and its 500 million users. Google will introduce what Schmidt referred to as "a social layer" into its existing suite of online search, video and mapping products. For months, Google has been making acquisitions and recruiting talent for the secretive project dubbed "Google Me. " The speculation intensified in August when Google bought Angstro, a company that organizes news for social networks, and hired its co-founder Rohit Khare.

Google Inc. is stockpiling technology and talent for what many believe will be a full-on assault against Silicon Valley rival Facebook Inc. As part of its campaign to build a social networking service to counter the explosive growth of Facebook, Google confirmed Friday that it had bought up Internet company Angstro and hired its co-founder Rohit Khare. Khare, a respected Internet researcher, is one of several new faces at Google charged with helping the Internet search giant compete for the eyeballs and dollars increasingly flowing to social networking.

An email war of words between tech entrepreneur Elon Musk of Tesla Motors Inc. and a prominent automotive journalist will turn into a $1-million payday for Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity. Car reviewer Dan Neil of the Wall Street Journal and Musk have been trading oral and email barbs over whether Tesla will be able to bring out its Model S luxury electric sedan on schedule and at the claimed price. Musk is the chief executive of Palo Alto-based Tesla as well as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the Hawthorne rocket company.

Struggling to raise money amid the financial crisis, electric carmaker Telsa Motors Inc. will eliminate nearly a quarter of its workforce in a bid for profitability. Chairman and Chief Executive Elon Musk said Friday that Tesla would cut as many as 87 staff and full-time contract workers, or 24% of the 363-person total. The company also will attempt to raise $25 million, rather than the $100 million it had been seeking. Last week, the Santa Rosa-based start-up said it would delay production of its electric sedan, close two offices, increase production of its $109,000 Roadster and lay off an unspecified number of employees.

EBay Inc., the world's largest Internet auctioneer, is raising the listing fees it charges sellers using its U.S. sites and is making changes to fee structures in 10 other countries to fund improvements. The U.S. fee increases will take effect in February and already are included in the company's 2004 sales forecast, said Hani Durzy, a spokesman for San Jose-based EBay. The increases will run as much as 45% for the highest-priced auction items. Most fees will rise by 9.1%.

You can feel the electricity. Tesla Motors Inc., manufacturer of an exotic electric roadster, will launch its brick-and-mortar retailing effort with a store on Santa Monica Boulevard near the 405 Freeway in November. And Environmental Motors, the newest dealer for Zap, importer of a three-wheeled, low-speed electric "city car" called the Xebra, just held a grand opening for its showroom at 134 S. Glendale Ave. in Glendale.

After becoming the first private company ever to blast a spacecraft into Earth orbit and have it return intact last month, Hawthorne rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is pushing toward its next big step. The company known as SpaceX wants to be the first commercial firm to launch astronauts into outer space and has submitted a proposal to NASA. SpaceX wants in on the potentially multibillion-dollar job of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the space shuttle is retired this year.

Reid Hoffman is a big man in Silicon Valley. And, try as he might to remain in the background, his stature just keeps growing -- literally and figuratively. It all began in the bleak aftermath of the dot-com bust, when despondent entrepreneurs and investors were throwing in the towel. Hoffman, never one to shrink from a challenge, rolled up his sleeves. The PayPal Inc. veteran took some of the $10 million he made in 2002, when EBay Inc.