Elon Musk has a long way to go before colonizing Mars, but the controversial billionaire already has his own city on a flat patch of Texas, where giant, experimental Starship rockets roar over the incongruous sight of dolphins -- and some skeptical human neighbors.

Starbase on the south Texas coast is HQ for the Starship project and something of a shrine to its South African-born founder, the world's richest man and until recently one of President Donald Trump's closest advisors.

Musk's short Washington tenure spearheading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, ended last week, with a vow to get back to his day job of running his business empire, including SpaceX, Tesla and Starlink.

The departure came as investors grew increasingly nervous about the spillover from

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