Before You Sell in the Anduril Tender, Make These 5 Decisions

The Anduril tender offer is open at $94.80, and everyone around you has an opinion on how much to sell. Before you sell a single share, there are five decisions to make.

Why Liquidity Decides Your Share Count

Liquidity doesn’t mean spending money. It means having the cash to make the decision you want instead of the one you’re forced into.

Every decision below comes back to that. Keeping shares takes capital. Without it, the tax bill, the tender, the exercise window and your exit all start making decisions for you.

Decision 1: The Tax Bill on Your Anduril RSUs

In the hypothetical example, RSUs settled at $61.55. Most shareholders took the default: 22% federal withholding.

The problem is the gap. If your income puts you in the 35% or 37% federal bracket, plus California, 22% doesn’t cover what you owe. The tax didn’t disappear. It moved to April.

Know that number now. Not in March.

• Run it: RSU Tax & Withholding Gap Calculator
• Background on the withholding election: Anduril single-trigger RSU tax bill

Decision 2: Pay in Dollars or Pay in Shares

Every time your RSUs settle, you pay the tax one of two ways. In dollars. Or in shares.

Net settling feels painless because nothing leaves your bank account. But if you’re bullish, those withheld shares are the payment.

Example: say roughly 4,000 of your shares went to withholding at $61.55. The tender is at $94.80. That’s $33.25 on every one of those shares, about $133,000 of value paid in shares instead of dollars. That’s a painful opportunity cost to swallow, because it could have been avoided. And if you’re bullish, you don’t think $94.80 is the ceiling.

Paying withholding in cash keeps the share count intact. It only works if the cash exists outside the position, and only if your plan allows it. Confirm with your plan administrator.

Decision 3: What You Sell in the Anduril Tender Offer

A tender should be a choice. Not an emergency exit.

If April is already covered outside your shares, you can pass. Or take only what you need.

And if you do sell, sell to a number. Your secure number.

Your secure number can include three things:

1. Obligations: taxes owed, debt, near-term commitments
2. Life goals: a house down payment, education, a sabbatical
3. Comfort capital: the cushion that lets you sleep at night

Right now, for a lot of Anduril shareholders, it’s one thing. The tax you owe because you were under-withheld. The house down payment? The comfort capital? Push those out. Not never. Just not yet.

The mistake goes both ways. Sell too little, and April makes the decision for you. Sell too much, too early, and you’ve traded shares you wanted to keep for goals that could have waited.

So model the number first: Tender Offer Simulator

Decision 4: When You Exercise Your Anduril Stock Options

If you hold options and you’re bullish, today may be the cheaper window. When the stock goes up, the spread goes up. So does the cost to exercise, and for ISOs, the AMT exposure.

Splitting an exercise across December and January can put two tax years to work.

The trap is waiting. If your cash already went to April, it’s easy to say:

• “I’ll exercise later.”
• “When there’s another tender.”
• “When I have more cash.”

Waiting is a bet against your own thesis. Later might be the most expensive word in your equity plan.

• Run it: ISO/NSO Exercise & AMT Calculator

Decision 5: What Happens When You Leave Anduril

Leaving isn’t an if. It’s a when. And when you leave, “later” gets a deadline.

Check your own grant agreement, because terms vary. But you may have as little as 60 days to exercise vested options after you leave.

No tender open. No public market. The asset you believe in can’t help you pay for it.

So fund the exercise and the tax before you give notice. Not after.

Can You Borrow Against Anduril Shares?

Maybe someday. SpaceX shareholders didn’t have real lending options early in their cycle either. Those came later.

Anduril may get there. But you can’t build today’s plan around a door you hope opens tomorrow.

Hype Is Not Liquidity

Everything above assumes liquidity eventually shows up. A tender. An IPO. None of that is guaranteed.

So your plan has to survive both futures. The one where it all works. And the one where it takes a lot longer than you expected.

Concentration You Can’t Survive Is the Mistake

You’ll hear conventional advice that says you should get any individual stock below 10% or 15% of your net worth. That’s not where I start.

Concentration itself isn’t automatically the mistake. Concentration you can’t survive is.

This is the Worker to Investor idea in one sentence. The worker looks at the value of the shares. The investor builds the system around the shares.

In practice, that system has two parts. A Cash Account that covers taxes, exercises and near-term obligations without touching the position. And a Wealth Account that grows independent of any single company. That’s the blueprint we used with SpaceX shareholders, and it’s the one we’re using with Anduril shareholders now.

• See how much of your net worth rides on one company: Concentration Risk Analyzer
• Find the number where work becomes optional: Critical Mass Simulator
• The Anduril-specific framework: Worker to Investor: Anduril
• What comes after liquidity: The Post-IPO Divestment Playbook

The Test

Ask yourself three questions.

1. If your next vest happened tomorrow, could you keep every share you wanted to keep?
2. If April showed up with a six-figure tax bill, where does that money come from?
3. If you left six months from now, could you afford to exercise the options you want to own?

You can be right about Anduril and still make the wrong decisions around your equity. Being bullish is only half the strategy. You also need the liquidity to stay bullish.

Every calculator mentioned here is free, with no login: Equity Tools Hub. More on Anduril: Anduril Equity Planning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Anduril RSUs single-trigger?

Anduril RSUs now settle at vest, with no second trigger. The first settlement after the double trigger was eliminated came in August. Each settlement counts as ordinary income in the year it happens. Confirm the terms in your own grant documents.

Why do I owe more tax in April if Anduril already withheld?

The default federal withholding on RSU income is 22%. Shareholders in the 35% or 37% bracket owe the difference, plus any state tax shortfall, when they file. The RSU Tax & Withholding Gap Calculator estimates that gap.

Should I pay Anduril RSU withholding in cash or net settle?

Net settling pays the tax in shares. Paying in cash keeps every share. If you’re bullish and have cash outside the position, paying in dollars preserves your share count. If paying in cash would drain your safety net, net settling may be the better trade-off.

How much should I sell in an Anduril tender offer?

Sell to a secure number, not a feeling. That number covers obligations first, then life goals and comfort capital. For many shareholders right now, the priority is the under-withheld tax. The Tender Offer Simulator models different sale amounts.

When is the best time to exercise Anduril stock options?

For a bullish shareholder, earlier usually costs less, because a lower spread means less tax at exercise. Splitting an exercise across December and January can spread the income over two tax years. ISO holders should model AMT first with the ISO/NSO Exercise & AMT Calculator.

What happens to my Anduril stock options if I leave?

Vested options usually have to be exercised within a set window after you leave, sometimes as little as 60 days. Check your grant agreement. Without a tender or a public market, the exercise cost and the tax must come from cash you already have.

Can I borrow against my Anduril shares?

Lending against private shares is limited at this stage. SpaceX shareholders saw more lending options later in their cycle. Plan with the liquidity you have today, not lending that may or may not become available.

Your Equity Built This Far. Strategy Protects What Comes Next.

If you want to model your five decisions with real numbers, from the April gap to your secure number to your exercise plan, talk to Derek.

Talk to Derek →