diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gpu.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gpu.c
index 9320437e923d..29834b1a36fb 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gpu.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gpu.c
@@ -863,7 +863,14 @@ int msm_gpu_init(struct drm_device *drm, struct platform_device *pdev,
 	gpu->dev = drm;
 	gpu->funcs = funcs;
 	gpu->name = name;
-	gpu->inactive = true;
+	/*
+	 * Set the inactive flag to false, so that when the retire worker
+	 * kicks in from the init path, it knows that it has to turn off the
+	 * clocks. This should be fine to do since this is the init sequence
+	 * and we have an init_lock in msm_open() to protect against bad things
+	 * from happening.
+	 */
+	gpu->inactive = false;
 
 	INIT_LIST_HEAD(&gpu->active_list);
 	INIT_WORK(&gpu->retire_work, retire_worker);