diff --git a/pkg/kubelet/kuberuntime/kuberuntime_container_linux.go b/pkg/kubelet/kuberuntime/kuberuntime_container_linux.go
index ad6b378cccf..adeb7aa5b30 100644
--- a/pkg/kubelet/kuberuntime/kuberuntime_container_linux.go
+++ b/pkg/kubelet/kuberuntime/kuberuntime_container_linux.go
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ func (m *kubeGenericRuntimeManager) calculateLinuxResources(cpuRequest, cpuLimit
 	// If request is not specified, but limit is, we want request to default to limit.
 	// API server does this for new containers, but we repeat this logic in Kubelet
 	// for containers running on existing Kubernetes clusters.
-	if cpuRequest == nil {
+	if cpuRequest == nil && cpuLimit != nil {
 		cpuShares = int64(cm.MilliCPUToShares(cpuLimit.MilliValue()))
 	} else {
 		// if cpuRequest.Amount is nil, then MilliCPUToShares will return the minimal number