diff --git a/ThunkLibs/GuestLibs/CMakeLists.txt b/ThunkLibs/GuestLibs/CMakeLists.txt
index ce37d95c8..f6c9f8e80 100644
--- a/ThunkLibs/GuestLibs/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/ThunkLibs/GuestLibs/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -91,6 +91,10 @@ add_guest_lib(EGL)
 generate(libGL ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../libGL/libGL_interface.cpp thunks function_packs function_packs_public symbol_list)
 add_guest_lib(GL)
 
+# libGL must pull in libX11.so, so generate a placeholder libX11.so to link against
+add_library(X11 SHARED ../libX11/libX11_NativeGuest.cpp)
+target_link_libraries(GL-guest PRIVATE X11)
+
 # disabled for now, headers are platform specific
 # find_package(SDL2 REQUIRED)
 # generate(libSDL2 thunks function_packs function_packs_public)
diff --git a/ThunkLibs/libGL/libGL_Guest.cpp b/ThunkLibs/libGL/libGL_Guest.cpp
index 05fe827f3..01024b5ee 100644
--- a/ThunkLibs/libGL/libGL_Guest.cpp
+++ b/ThunkLibs/libGL/libGL_Guest.cpp
@@ -65,4 +65,8 @@ extern "C" {
 	}
 }
 
+// libGL.so must pull in libX11.so as a dependency. Referencing some libX11
+// symbol here prevents the linker from optimizing away the unused dependency
+auto implicit_libx11_dependency = XSetErrorHandler;
+
 LOAD_LIB(libGL)
diff --git a/ThunkLibs/libX11/libX11_NativeGuest.cpp b/ThunkLibs/libX11/libX11_NativeGuest.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a1a958a2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ThunkLibs/libX11/libX11_NativeGuest.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+// This file only exists to create a placeholder library to link against for
+// libraries that are supposed to implicitly load libX11. At runtime, the guest
+// linker will select the library from the RootFS instead, which is then
+// replaced by libX11-guest.so.
+
+// Define some symbol so that the linker doesn't consider this library unused
+extern "C" void XSetErrorHandler() {}