diff --git a/hack/build/init-buildx.sh b/hack/build/init-buildx.sh
index bb0d5bd8..b896f5a3 100755
--- a/hack/build/init-buildx.sh
+++ b/hack/build/init-buildx.sh
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 set -o errexit -o nounset -o pipefail
 
+# TODO: newer buildx releases ship their own qemu copies and don't need any of this
 # We can skip setup if the current builder already has multi-arch
 # AND if it isn't the docker driver, which doesn't work
 current_builder="$(docker buildx inspect)"
diff --git a/hack/release/build/push-node.sh b/hack/release/build/push-node.sh
index efb56245..8ca67af7 100755
--- a/hack/release/build/push-node.sh
+++ b/hack/release/build/push-node.sh
@@ -28,8 +28,9 @@ make build
 # path to kubernetes sources
 KUBEROOT="${KUBEROOT:-"$(go env GOPATH)"/src/k8s.io/kubernetes}"
 
-# ensure we have qemu setup (de-duped logic with setting up buildx for multi-arch)
-"${REPO_ROOT}/hack/build/init-buildx.sh"
+# ensure we have qemu setup so we can run cross-arch images
+# TODO: dedupe specifying this image?
+docker run --rm --privileged tonistiigi/binfmt:qemu-v7.0.0-28@sha256:66e11bea77a5ea9d6f0fe79b57cd2b189b5d15b93a2bdb925be22949232e4e55 --install all
 
 # NOTE: adding platforms is costly in terms of build time
 # we will consider expanding this in the future, for now the aim is to prove