diff --git a/tools/perf/Makefile b/tools/perf/Makefile
index 225454416ed54b2baea044ce46c794e23c708f71..7902a5681fc89f6eda64234de379fc8122567529 100644
--- a/tools/perf/Makefile
+++ b/tools/perf/Makefile
@@ -84,10 +84,10 @@ endif # has_clean
 endif # MAKECMDGOALS
 
 #
-# 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,