diff --git a/salt/modules/postgres.py b/salt/modules/postgres.py
index d9664ac840a..85656cc2612 100644
--- a/salt/modules/postgres.py
+++ b/salt/modules/postgres.py
@@ -269,7 +269,7 @@ def _run_initdb(
             "postgres.timeout", default=_DEFAULT_COMMAND_TIMEOUT_SECS
         ),
     )
-    cmdstr = " ".join([shlex.quote(c) for c in cmd])
+    cmdstr = shlex.join(cmd)
     ret = __salt__["cmd.run_all"](cmdstr, python_shell=False, **kwargs)
 
     if ret.get("retcode", 0) != 0: