diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/telent-prompt-fix.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/telent-prompt-fix.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..12684b287f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/telent-prompt-fix.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+bugfixes:
+- Fix an issue with the default telnet prompt handling. The value needs to be
+  escaped otherwise it does not work when converted to bytes.
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/telnet.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/telnet.py
index 201f3bb0380..63b3870c34e 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/telnet.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/telnet.py
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ class ActionModule(ActionBase):
 
             login_prompt = self._task.args.get('login_prompt', "login: ")
             password_prompt = self._task.args.get('password_prompt', "Password: ")
-            prompts = self._task.args.get('prompts', ["$ "])
+            prompts = self._task.args.get('prompts', ["\\$ "])
             commands = self._task.args.get('command') or self._task.args.get('commands')
 
             if isinstance(commands, text_type):