diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/config.py b/src/axolotl/utils/config.py
index 9873687aa..b7bbab668 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/config.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/config.py
@@ -30,6 +30,12 @@ def choose_device(cfg):
         else:
             cfg.device_map = {"": cfg.device}
 
+    # in `accelerate launch`, we need to not pass through any device map and let
+    # accelerate figure out which parts of the model to put on which gpu
+    accelerate_vars = [var for var in os.environ if var.startswith("ACCELERATE_USE_")]
+    if accelerate_vars:
+        cfg.device_map = None
+
 
 def normalize_config(cfg):
     # setup some derived config / hyperparams
diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/models.py b/src/axolotl/utils/models.py
index 5ed140b07..1f36c50db 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/models.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/models.py
@@ -235,6 +235,7 @@ def load_model(
             model = LlamaForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
                 base_model,
                 config=config,
+                device_map=cfg.device_map,
                 load_in_8bit=cfg.load_in_8bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
                 load_in_4bit=cfg.load_in_4bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
                 torch_dtype=torch_dtype,
@@ -269,6 +270,7 @@ def load_model(
         elif model_type and not cfg.trust_remote_code:
             model = getattr(transformers, model_type).from_pretrained(
                 base_model,
+                device_map=cfg.device_map,
                 load_in_8bit=cfg.load_in_8bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
                 load_in_4bit=cfg.load_in_4bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
                 torch_dtype=torch_dtype,
@@ -299,6 +301,7 @@ def load_model(
             model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
                 base_model,
                 config=config,
+                device_map=cfg.device_map,
                 load_in_8bit=cfg.load_in_8bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
                 load_in_4bit=cfg.load_in_4bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
                 torch_dtype=torch_dtype,
@@ -312,6 +315,7 @@ def load_model(
         LOG.exception(err)
         model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
             base_model,
+            device_map=cfg.device_map,
             load_in_8bit=cfg.load_in_8bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
             load_in_4bit=cfg.load_in_4bit and cfg.adapter is not None,
             torch_dtype=torch_dtype,