diff --git a/lib/functions/compilation/kernel-debs.sh b/lib/functions/compilation/kernel-debs.sh
index 13e8f177f8..c29a4abfd5 100644
--- a/lib/functions/compilation/kernel-debs.sh
+++ b/lib/functions/compilation/kernel-debs.sh
@@ -444,10 +444,13 @@ function kernel_package_callback_linux_headers() {
 	# Understand: I'm sending the logs of this to the bitbucket ON PURPOSE: "clean" tries to use clang, ALSA, etc, which are not available.
 	#             The logs produced during this step throw off developers casually looking at the logs.
 	#             Important: if the steps _fail_ here, you'll have to enable DEBUG=yes to see what's going on.
+	#
+	# In order for the cleanup to be correct  for tools, we need to pass the VMLINUX_BTF variable,
+	# which contains the real path to the newly compiled vmlinux file.
 	declare make_bitbucket="&> /dev/null"
 	[[ "${DEBUG}" == "yes" ]] && make_bitbucket=""
 	run_host_command_logged cd "${headers_target_dir}" "&&" make "ARCH=${SRC_ARCH}" "M=scripts" clean "${make_bitbucket}"
-	run_host_command_logged cd "${headers_target_dir}/tools" "&&" make "ARCH=${SRC_ARCH}" clean "${make_bitbucket}"
+	run_host_command_logged cd "${headers_target_dir}/tools" "&&" make "ARCH=${SRC_ARCH}" "VMLINUX_BTF=${kernel_work_dir}/vmlinux" clean "${make_bitbucket}"
 
 	# Trim down on the tools dir a bit after cleaning.
 	rm -rf "${headers_target_dir}/tools/perf" "${headers_target_dir}/tools/testing"