diff --git a/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ElementwiseOpFusion.cpp b/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ElementwiseOpFusion.cpp
--- a/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ElementwiseOpFusion.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ElementwiseOpFusion.cpp
@@ -425,7 +425,7 @@
       FailureOr<ElementwiseOpFusionResult> fusionResult =
           fuseElementwiseOps(rewriter, &opOperand);
       if (failed(fusionResult))
-        rewriter.notifyMatchFailure(genericOp, "fusion failed");
+        return rewriter.notifyMatchFailure(genericOp, "fusion failed");
       Operation *producer = opOperand.get().getDefiningOp();
       for (auto [origVal, replacement] : fusionResult->replacements) {
         Value origValCopy = origVal;