Gibson Guitars Destroyed in Viral Video

Gibson Guitars is on the receiving end of heavy criticism after a video went viral showing hundreds of their guitars being destroyed for seemingly no reason.

The video was uploaded by BJ Wilkes, a former Gibson employee, who told The Guitologist in an interview that the Firebird X guitars were crushed in the video below because “Gibson literally could not sell these guitars and they were on the books.”

A number of users flooded the YouTube video's comment section criticizing Gibson for a number of reasons from not donating the guitars to music programs to simply wasting all of those materials used to make the Firebird X guitars.

Gibson has responded to the video saying in a statement those guitars were part of "...an isolated batch of Firebird X models built in 2009-2011 which were unsalvageable and damaged with unsafe components. This isolated group of Firebird X models were unable to be donated for any purpose and were destroyed accordingly.”

The company noted in their statement they would be giving away 1,000 guitars for the next 1,000 days as a gesture adding to “...Gibson’s commitment to giving back, helping under-served music education programs, empowering music culture and encouraging the creation of music.”