diff --git a/tools/perf/Makefile b/tools/perf/Makefile
index dcd9a70c7193..55933b2eb932 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Makefile
+++ b/tools/perf/Makefile
@@ -69,10 +69,10 @@ all tags TAGS:
 	$(make)
 
 #
-# The clean target is not really parallel, don't print the jobs info:
+# Explicitly disable parallelism for the clean target.
 #
 clean:
-	$(make)
+	$(make) -j1
 
 #
 # The build-test target is not really parallel, don't print the jobs info: