diff --git a/pkg/rke2/spw.go b/pkg/rke2/spw.go
index 083c653c7b4..1876f514cab 100644
--- a/pkg/rke2/spw.go
+++ b/pkg/rke2/spw.go
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ import (
 	"context"
 	"os"
 	"path/filepath"
+	"sort"
 	"sync"
 	"time"
 
@@ -66,8 +67,10 @@ func reconcileStaticPods(containerRuntimeEndpoint, dataDir string) cmds.StartupH
 	}
 }
 
-// checkManifestDeployed returns an error if the static pod's manifest cannot be decoded and verified as present
-// and exclusively running with the current pod uid. If old pods are found, they will be terminated and an error returned.
+// checkManifestDeployed verified that a pod for this manifest is exclusively running with the current pod uid.
+// Pods with a different uid are removed and an error returned indicating that cleanup is in progress.
+// The state of the most recently created pod with a matching uid is used to determine state. In the case of pod
+// restarts with the same uid, pods from old attempts will be ignored as long as the most recent pod is ready.
 func checkManifestDeployed(ctx context.Context, cRuntime runtimeapi.RuntimeServiceClient, manifestFile string) error {
 	f, err := os.Open(manifestFile)
 	if err != nil {
@@ -94,6 +97,9 @@ func checkManifestDeployed(ctx context.Context, cRuntime runtimeapi.RuntimeServi
 		return errors.Wrap(err, "failed to list pods")
 	}
 
+	// Sort pods for this component in ascending order of creation time, so that we process newer pods last.
+	sort.Slice(resp.Items, func(i, j int) bool { return resp.Items[i].CreatedAt < resp.Items[j].CreatedAt })
+
 	var currentPod, stalePod bool
 	for _, pod := range resp.Items {
 		if pod.Annotations["kubernetes.io/config.source"] != "file" {