Welcome to Woke 3.0, Tech Bros

The Democrats had a historic night Tuesday, with huge election wins in red states like South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas. The Democrats will control the House, the Senate, and a majority of states will have Democratic governors come January. Tech leaders loyal to Republicans and President Donald Trump are licking their wounds, and Democrats are celebrating like crazy on social media. One of the most common jokes right now is about the start of the Woke 3 era. And even though many people are making light of it, there’s probably some truth to the idea that this is a bold new chapter. Unfortunately for the right-wing tech bros like Elon Musk, Woke 3 isn’t going to be nearly as tame as Woke 1. The Woke eras, if you’re unfamiliar, describe different periods when more socially progressive ideas dominated the discourse. They were defined by more inclusive language—think Latinx, “unhoused,” and pronouns in bios—along with a general recognition that racism and sexism exist as things people should fight against. People on the right throw around the word “woke” to ridicule anything they didn’t like, but there was something earnest and authentic about Woke 1 as a movement. It was a mission to become more socially conscious and make the world a little bit fairer place to live. The people who crushed Woke 1 aren’t going to like the goals of Woke 3 one bit. Because this one comes with political power, thanks to the Democratic landslide. fuck woke 2 we’re going straight to woke 5.5 opus — G Jones (@gjonesbass) November 4, 2026 Woke 1 Woke 1 arguably started in the 2010s during the second term of President Barack Obama and peaked in the summer of 2020 with the uprising in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after a police officer killed George Floyd. Identifying as woke, a word adopted from black culture, was something that even some of President Trump’s most die-hard tech fans in 2026 seemed to be on board with back in 2020 after seeing an unarmed man murdered on the street. Even guys who now call themselves MAGA Republicans in 2026 were sending messages that they cared about things like inequality during the Woke 1 era. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted on Jan. 31, 2021: “There are only two priorities: Inequality + Climate Change.” Palihapitiya is now heavily invested in Trumpism and was clearly disappointed in the midterm results during his livestream with the other All-In podcast hosts Tuesday. Musk bought Twitter in late 2022 and declared the end of the woke era. The Tesla CEO made fun of T-shirts he found at Twitter’s HQ in San Francisco that read “stay woke” and did everything in his power to kill the movement during President Joe Biden’s presidency. Found in closet at Twitter HQ fr 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/3xSI3KvvHk — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022 Woke 2 Woke 2 can be loosely defined as the backlash against President Trump’s return to power in early 2025. The sequel didn’t have the same political weight as Woke 1, given that Republicans controlled all three branches of government, but it was certainly present in the streets. Minnesota was again at the forefront after two people were killed by ICE agents in Jan. 2026. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down, and the people who took their lives are still walking free. Nationwide protests against the brutality of ICE and the gutting of the federal government by the Department of Government Efficiency were all part of Woke 2, an arguably darker and angrier form of liberalism than Woke 1, which simply sought to usher in a more inclusive society. Woke 2 bubbled up while 300,000 workers were purged from the federal government, ICE agents were snatching people off the streets, and USAID was unlawfully destroyed by techno-arsonists like Elon Musk. Woke 2 was less about language and social inclusivity. It was about hoping the criminals in charge would one day face some form of accountability, as you can see from this photo taken at ICE’s Otay Mesa Detention Center outside San Diego, California, taken earlier this year. A protester with a sign that reads “See you at Nuremberg assholes” at the ICE/CoreCivic Otay Mesa Detention Center outside San Diego, California, on Jan. 25, 2026. © Matt Novak / Gizmodo Woke 3 Woke 3 is upon us, and it remains to be seen how it will be defined. But thanks to the election results of Tuesday, it comes with political power. And the tech bros of Silicon Valley and Texas are going to have to get used to that. Democrats have already pledged to investigate Musk, and in the world of Woke 3, there may even be some form of accountability. After all, this is the guy who’s got a lot of blood on his hands. Whatever Woke 3 looks like, people are already making jokes about it after the electoral bloodbath on Tuesday. Many of those jokes shared Tuesday and Wednesday are clearly from right-wingers terrified of what’s to come. Others are from progressives excited about a radical vibe shift seemingly confirmed by a landslide election. The tech oligarchs fully embraced Trumpism during his first two years back in power. They kissed his ass and even changed the language they used to placate him. Want to turn Lake Ontario into Lake America, despite that making absolutely no sense? Google and Apple were happy to oblige. The All-in podcast this week pic.twitter.com/4eFGPuDa09 —  Q-Cap  (@qcapital2020) November 4, 2026 There’s no reason to believe that the tech leaders of late 2026 are going to denounce Trump until he’s truly gone from the political landscape. But it’s easy to imagine a world where they pull their foot off the gas of fascism a little bit these next couple of years as Woke 3 becomes ascendant. You can run, but you can’t hide from the march of time Part of the issue for tech CEOs is simply one of demographics. Even Gen X, the Trumpiest generation of them all based on 2024 numbers, voted blue this election by a slight margin, according to exit polls from NBC News. But the youngest adults are the ones who are fully fed up with MAGA’s bullshit. Seventy-three percent of voters aged 18-29 went Democrat, with just 25% going for the Republicans, according to NBC. Those 65 and older were evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. But the march of time is having its way with the Boomers and Silent Generation, as it eventually does with us all. Each Woke era has brought about its own pushback. Most of that pushback is going to age poorly as we enter Woke 3. Liberal commentator Matthew Yglesias took the opportunity after Trump returned to office in 2025 to use a slur for developmentally disabled people, seemingly comfortable with using it again after the Woke era was behind us as a country. At least that’s what he seemed to believe. A now-deleted tweet from Matthew Yglesias in 2025 using a slur for developmentally disabled people © X You saw similar sentiments expressed in the Financial Times. “I feel liberated,” an unnamed banker was quoted as saying in 2025. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled . . . it’s a new dawn.” Many of the people who stayed on Twitter after Elon Musk purchased the platform and renamed it X reveled in what they viewed as the death of woke. They were banking on a permanent shift in culture that evaporated in less than two years. And we’re going to see how they fare once the wheels of Woke 3 really start turning. The worst thing that could happen to most people during Woke 1 was getting cancelled. If the pendulum swings hard enough, the targets of Woke 3 are going to get hauled in front of Congress or even be thrown in jail. Elon Musk himself predicted that possibility in the lead-up to the 2024 election. On Wednesday morning, after it was clear Democrats were returning to power, Musk conspicuously deleted a tweet from his timeline. “Vote red today!” the post urged.