Do we like Tiësto?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a decent run of charity work, but he's said little publicly on the issues that matter to us, and he took a Saudi gig.
Tijs Verwest, aka Tiësto, is a Breda boy who became one of the biggest names in dance music. When he donated a concert fee to local causes back home, he said he was “blij en dankbaar” for what he'd achieved as a Breda boy. That hometown loyalty is a recurring thread in his story.
The big story of his recent years is a tax saga, and he's the one who got burned. His former tax adviser Frank Butselaar pleaded guilty to aiding the filing of a false tax return for another DJ, and was sentenced to 30 months in 2025. Tiësto wasn't charged, and Rolling Stone described him as a victim of that advice. He testified at trial that he trusted it and “didn't think anything weird about it”.
In May 2026 the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled that faulty US tax advice from a law firm had unknowingly made him a US tax resident. It reversed a lower court and ordered the firm to pay about €14.5 million. Reports say the firm can still try for the Dutch Supreme Court, so it may not be over.
A separate copyright suit over his hit with Karol G, “Don't Be Shy”, also went his way. A Florida federal judge dismissed it in 2025 after finding the plaintiff hadn't shown the song was ever heard by the defendants. The judge also found the plaintiff's music expert unqualified.
Now the harm check, and it's thin in a good way. We found no anti-LGBTQ+ comments, no conspiracy rabbit holes and no campaigning against anyone's rights. He has played Chicago's Pride in the Park. The one blemish is a 2019 gig in Saudi Arabia: Amnesty objected and CodePink wrote an open letter about Yemen and jailed activists. His manager couldn't be reached and his social post didn't address it. The record is thin on his own views, so this is an absence of harm, not a loud ally.
The good stuff is real. In 2017 he gave €100,000, the fee for a Breda concert, to eight local causes. In 2024 his remix of Bad Bunny's “Una Velita” sent all proceeds to Puerto Rican music and artists through the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. Musically, he's now chasing his trance roots with the Prismatic show and a promised trance album.