diff --git a/vl.c b/vl.c
index b3c80d5077..ee557a1d3f 100644
--- a/vl.c
+++ b/vl.c
@@ -2810,6 +2810,19 @@ static bool object_create_initial(const char *type)
         return false;
     }
 
+    /* Memory allocation by backends needs to be done
+     * after configure_accelerator() (due to the tcg_enabled()
+     * checks at memory_region_init_*()).
+     *
+     * Also, allocation of large amounts of memory may delay
+     * chardev initialization for too long, and trigger timeouts
+     * on software that waits for a monitor socket to be created
+     * (e.g. libvirt).
+     */
+    if (g_str_has_prefix(type, "memory-backend-")) {
+        return false;
+    }
+
     return true;
 }