diff --git a/storage_controller/src/service.rs b/storage_controller/src/service.rs
index 50ce559cc0..72379f0810 100644
--- a/storage_controller/src/service.rs
+++ b/storage_controller/src/service.rs
@@ -3663,7 +3663,7 @@ impl Service {
                 locations: ShardMutationLocations,
                 http_client: reqwest::Client,
                 jwt: Option<String>,
-                create_req: TimelineCreateRequest,
+                mut create_req: TimelineCreateRequest,
             ) -> Result<TimelineInfo, ApiError> {
                 let latest = locations.latest.node;
 
@@ -3682,6 +3682,15 @@ impl Service {
                     .await
                     .map_err(|e| passthrough_api_error(&latest, e))?;
 
+                // If we are going to create the timeline on some stale locations for shard 0, then ask them to re-use
+                // the initdb generated by the latest location, rather than generating their own.  This avoids racing uploads
+                // of initdb to S3 which might not be binary-identical if different pageservers have different postgres binaries.
+                if tenant_shard_id.is_shard_zero() {
+                    if let models::TimelineCreateRequestMode::Bootstrap { existing_initdb_timeline_id, .. } = &mut create_req.mode {
+                        *existing_initdb_timeline_id = Some(create_req.new_timeline_id);
+                    }
+                }
+
                 // We propagate timeline creations to all attached locations such that a compute
                 // for the new timeline is able to start regardless of the current state of the
                 // tenant shard reconciliation.