diff --git a/tools/utils/shlex/shlex.go b/tools/utils/shlex/shlex.go
index cd1d5a7e8..d0d8c0bba 100644
--- a/tools/utils/shlex/shlex.go
+++ b/tools/utils/shlex/shlex.go
@@ -71,7 +71,8 @@ func (self *Lexer) write_escaped_ch() bool {
 	ch, count := utf8.DecodeRuneInString(self.src[self.src_pos:])
 	if count > 0 {
 		self.src_pos += count
-		if ch != utf8.RuneError {
+		// Invalid UTF-8 always decodes as (RuneError, 1), so a larger size means a real U+FFFD.
+		if ch != utf8.RuneError || count > 1 {
 			self.buf.WriteRune(ch)
 		}
 		return true
diff --git a/tools/utils/shlex/shlex_test.go b/tools/utils/shlex/shlex_test.go
index 85064a761..3ef3293cf 100644
--- a/tools/utils/shlex/shlex_test.go
+++ b/tools/utils/shlex/shlex_test.go
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ func TestSplit(t *testing.T) {
 		``:              nil,
 		`   `:           nil,
 		" \tabc\n\t\r ": {{2, "abc"}},
+		"a\\\xffb":      {{0, "ab"}}, // an escaped invalid byte is still dropped
+		// An escaped U+FFFD is a real character, not a decoding failure, so it
+		// survives the escape the way it does unescaped or single quoted.
+		"a\\�b":     {{0, "a�b"}},
+		"\"a\\�b\"": {{0, "a�b"}},
 	} {
 		if diff := cmp.Diff(expected, s(q)); diff != "" {
 			t.Fatalf("Failed for string: %#v\n%s", q, diff)