BEIJING — Chinese people lash out at billionaires online Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Monday after China complained that its space station was forced to take evasive action to avoid collision with satellites launched by Musk’s Starlink programme.

Starlink Internet Services’ satellites had two close encounters with China’s SpaceX space company on July 1st and Oct 21st, according to documents submitted earlier by China to U.N. space agency.

China published a statement on its website stating that “for safety reasons, China Space Station applied preventive collision avoidance controller.”

SpaceX has not yet independently confirmed the allegations. SpaceX has not responded to my request for comment.

On Monday’s Weibo, China’s microblogging platform that is similar to Twitter, one person said Starlink’s satellites “just another pile of junk”, while another user described them “American space war weapons.”

Nearly 30,000 satellites, as well as other debris, are believed to orbit the planet. Scientists have asked governments for data sharing to lower the chance of space collisions.

SpaceX is currently planning to deploy more satellites, with nearly 1,900 already in orbit.

Chen Haiying posted on Weibo, “The Starlink risk are slowly exposed. The whole human race will cover for their business activities.”

NASA, the United States space agency was made to cancel a planned spacewalk in November. risks posed by space debris. Musk responded by tweeting that Starlink satellite orbits were being adjusted in order to decrease the chance of collisions.

China started construction of the space station with Tianhe’s launch in April. This module is the biggest of the three. After four crewed missions, the station should be complete by 2022.

Musk has grown to be a popular figure in China. But Tesla’s electric-vehicle company has made a comeback. under growing scrutinyA customer protested against bad customer service by climbing on the Tesla car’s roof at Shanghai’s auto show in April.