diff --git a/mlir/lib/ExecutionEngine/SparseTensor/CMakeLists.txt b/mlir/lib/ExecutionEngine/SparseTensor/CMakeLists.txt
index 6ef1529343453..c712c64b6de55 100644
--- a/mlir/lib/ExecutionEngine/SparseTensor/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/mlir/lib/ExecutionEngine/SparseTensor/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -21,6 +21,6 @@ set_property(TARGET MLIRSparseTensorRuntime PROPERTY CXX_STANDARD 17)
 check_cxx_compiler_flag(-Wweak-vtables
   COMPILER_SUPPORTS_WARNING_WEAK_VTABLES)
 if(COMPILER_SUPPORTS_WARNING_WEAK_VTABLES)
-  target_compile_options(MLIRSparseTensorRuntime PUBLIC
+  target_compile_options(MLIRSparseTensorRuntime PRIVATE
     "-Wweak-vtables")
 endif()