SpaceX posted third-quarter revenue well ahead of Wall Street's expectations on Tuesday, even as Elon Musk stoked fresh speculation about a possible merger with Tesla -- all while a disappointing stock-market debut for a South Korean AI cloud company sent a chill through data-center-linked shares.

SpaceX reported revenue of $14.58 billion for the quarter, topping analyst expectations of roughly $12.72 billion, according to CNBC's live coverage of the earnings call. The figure builds on a blistering second quarter, when SpaceX's revenue jumped 92% year-over-year to $7.8 billion, and keeps the company on pace toward the $100 billion annualized run rate Musk has set as a year-end target.

Merger Talk Resurfaces

On the earnings call, Musk once again raised the possibility of combining SpaceX with Tesla, telling listeners he thought a merger would be "a good idea" -- the latest twist in monthslong, on-again-off-again speculation about the two companies joining forces. Musk has previously dismissed some merger reports as "fake news" while at other times saying any combination would need to go through "the appropriate process" rather than be settled on an earnings call. No formal merger proposal or board vote has been announced by either company.

IT'S GOT TO BE DONE WITH THE APPROPRIATE PROCESS

AI Jitters Hit Data-Center Stocks

The earnings beat landed the same day Wall Street's broader AI trade took another hit. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed about 1%, gaining 529.85 points to close at 52,495.88, and the S&P 500 finished at 7,712.57, but data-center and AI-infrastructure stocks came under renewed pressure after Elice Group, a South Korean AI cloud and data-center firm, saw its shares slide roughly 30% on its KOSDAQ trading debut, according to CNBC.

Elice had priced its initial public offering at the top of its range after a booming 389-times oversubscribed order book, aiming to raise roughly $150 million to expand AI data centers, according to deal records from the offering. The rocky debut added to broader unease about how much money is being poured into AI infrastructure relative to the returns it's generating -- South Korea's Kospi index fell 3.73% on the same worries.

A Mixed Earnings Picture

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Equifax shares jumped almost 12% after beating earnings estimates and 3M rose more than 5% after raising its full-year guidance, while Bank of America shares fell nearly 5% after third-quarter revenue came in below forecasts. Analysts at JPMorgan have flagged regulatory approval as a "practical bottleneck" for any eventual Tesla-SpaceX combination, even as other Wall Street voices, including analyst Gene Munster, have put the odds of an eventual merger as high as 90%.

Tesla reports its own quarterly results in the coming days, a release investors will be watching closely for any sign that Musk's latest comments are more than just talk.