Kube-proxy won’t start in Minikube because of permission denied issue with /proc/sys/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_max

After updating Arch Linux (sudo pacman -Syu) and restarting the system, Minikube fails to start because of kube-proxy. The logs show it was trying to modify /proc/sys/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_max but it ran into a permission denied issue.

I tried to run sudo chmod 777 /proc/sys/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_max but the system didn't allow me. I also removed ~/.minikube and started again, but it still refused to work. Same issue when starting kind. Can anyone tell me how to fix this?

$ kubectl get pods -n kube-system

NAME                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
coredns-74ff55c5b-2hkpd             0/1     Running   0          22s
etcd-minikube                      0/1     Running   0          30s
kube-apiserver-minikube            1/1     Running   0          30s
kube-controller-manager-minikube   0/1     Running   0          30s
kube-proxy-qhhx9                   0/1     Error     2          22s
kube-scheduler-minikube            0/1     Running   0          30s
storage-provisioner                1/1     Running   0          35s

kubectl logs kube-proxy-qhhx9 -n kube-system

I0511 04:47:08.189373       1 node.go:172] Successfully retrieved node IP: 192.168.49.2
I0511 04:47:08.189422       1 server_others.go:142] kube-proxy node IP is an IPv4 address (192.168.49.2), assume IPv4 operation
W0511 04:47:08.207109       1 server_others.go:578] Unknown proxy mode "", assuming iptables proxy
I0511 04:47:08.207314       1 server_others.go:185] Using iptables Proxier.
I0511 04:47:08.208192       1 server.go:650] Version: v1.20.2
I0511 04:47:08.209006       1 conntrack.go:100] Set sysctl 'net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_max' to 131072
F0511 04:47:08.209060       1 server.go:495] open /proc/sys/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_max: permission denied

Kernel version

$ uname -r
5.12.2-arch1-1

$ iptables --version
iptables v1.8.7 (legacy)