Tesla cracks $500 for the first time after the new most bullish analyst on Wall Street says the stock will surge 28% this year

• On Monday, Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer raised his Tesla price target to $612 from $385. It's now the highest price target on Wall Street for the company and 28% above Friday's closing price.
• Shares of Tesla surged as much as 5.6% Monday and traded above $500 per share for the first time ever.
• While Tesla has "stumbled through growing pains, we believe the company has reached critical scale sufficient to support sustainable positive FCF," Rusch wrote in the Monday note.
• Watch Tesla trade live on Markets Insider.

Shares of Tesla surged as much as 5.6% early Monday, trading above $500 for the first time ever after an analyst at Oppenheimer released the new highest price target on Wall Street.

Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer raised his Tesla price target to $612 from $385 Monday and reaffirmed an "outperform" rating. The price target is handily the most bullish on Wall Street, beating out Piper Sandler's $553 target and Canaccord Genuity's $515 target.

The new most bullish price target is also roughly 28% higher than where shares of Tesla traded at Friday's close.

While Tesla has "stumbled through growing pains, we believe the company has reached critical scale sufficient to support sustainable positive FCF," Rusch wrote in the Monday note. Rusch raised his price target to $612 based on a 30x multiple of his 2024 non-GAAP earnings-per-share estimate of $28.67, discounted three years at 12%.

Rusch sees Tesla as a "must-own" stock that could benefit from inclusion in additional indexes.

"We believe the company's risk tolerance, ability to implement learnings from past errors, and larger ambition than peers are beginning to pose an existential threat to transportation companies that are unable or unwilling to innovate at a faster pace," he wrote.

In addition, Tesla's powertrain technology, power and data architecture, and operating system are about three years ahead of the competition, based on available vehicles and checks on new platforms, Rusch wrote.

The latest leg of Tesla's recent rally was also fueled Monday when the Chinese government signaled that it won't continue reducing subsidies for the electric vehicle industry at the same pace this year, Bloomberg reported.

Tesla stock has doubled since a surprise return to profitability in the third quarter of 2019. The Elon Musk-led automaker started the year off strong when it announced in early January that it delivered more vehicles than the low end of its guidance. The stock rally continued when Tesla opened its Gigafactory in Shanghai and began delivering the first vehicles made there to consumers.

The recent gains have made Tesla the highest-valued US automaker ever, and have brought its market value to more than Ford and GM combined.

Tesla has gained 14% year-to-date through Friday's close.