diff --git a/cmd/talosctl/cmd/mgmt/cluster/create/clusterops/configmaker/internal/makers/qemu.go b/cmd/talosctl/cmd/mgmt/cluster/create/clusterops/configmaker/internal/makers/qemu.go
index 448bb8217..f11c47dec 100644
--- a/cmd/talosctl/cmd/mgmt/cluster/create/clusterops/configmaker/internal/makers/qemu.go
+++ b/cmd/talosctl/cmd/mgmt/cluster/create/clusterops/configmaker/internal/makers/qemu.go
@@ -157,8 +157,9 @@ func (m *Qemu) AddExtraGenOps() error {
 		}
 	}
 
-	if !m.EOps.BootloaderEnabled {
-		// disable kexec, as this would effectively use the bootloader
+	// disable kexec, if bootloader is disabled, and
+	// also disable kexec on arm64 due to https://github.com/siderolabs/talos/issues/12393
+	if !m.EOps.BootloaderEnabled || m.EOps.TargetArch == "arm64" {
 		m.GenOps = slices.Concat(m.GenOps, []generate.Option{
 			generate.WithSysctls(map[string]string{
 				"kernel.kexec_load_disabled": "1",