diff --git a/kernel/padata.c b/kernel/padata.c
index e5819bb8bd1d..d175cc000453 100644
--- a/kernel/padata.c
+++ b/kernel/padata.c
@@ -83,8 +83,16 @@ static struct padata_work *padata_work_alloc(void)
 	return pw;
 }
 
-static void padata_work_init(struct padata_work *pw, work_func_t work_fn,
-			     void *data, int flags)
+/*
+ * This function is marked __ref because this function may be optimized in such
+ * a way that it directly refers to work_fn's address, which causes modpost to
+ * complain when work_fn is marked __init. This scenario was observed with clang
+ * LTO, where padata_work_init() was optimized to refer directly to
+ * padata_mt_helper() because the calls to padata_work_init() with other work_fn
+ * values were eliminated or inlined.
+ */
+static void __ref padata_work_init(struct padata_work *pw, work_func_t work_fn,
+				   void *data, int flags)
 {
 	if (flags & PADATA_WORK_ONSTACK)
 		INIT_WORK_ONSTACK(&pw->pw_work, work_fn);