diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh b/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh
index 32fdb1000e277e..94ea3e4e98e342 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh
@@ -7,21 +7,7 @@ gatherLibraries() {
 addEnvHooks "$targetOffset" gatherLibraries
 
 isExecutable() {
-    [ "$(file -b -N --mime-type "$1")" = application/x-executable ]
-}
-
-findElfs() {
-    find "$1" -type f -exec "$SHELL" -c '
-        while [ -n "$1" ]; do
-            mimeType="$(file -b -N --mime-type "$1")"
-            if [ "$mimeType" = application/x-executable \
-              -o "$mimeType" = application/x-pie-executable \
-              -o "$mimeType" = application/x-sharedlib ]; then
-                echo "$1"
-            fi
-            shift
-        done
-    ' -- {} +
+    readelf -h "$1" | grep -q '^ *Type: *EXEC\>'
 }
 
 # We cache dependencies so that we don't need to search through all of them on
@@ -167,9 +153,12 @@ autoPatchelf() {
     # findDependency outside of this, the dependency cache needs to be rebuilt
     # from scratch, so keep this in mind if you want to run findDependency
     # outside of this function.
-    findElfs "$prefix" | while read -r elffile; do
-        autoPatchelfFile "$elffile"
-    done
+    while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' file; do
+      isELF "$file" || continue
+      # dynamically linked?
+      readelf -l "$file" | grep -q "^ *INTERP\\>" || continue
+      autoPatchelfFile "$file"
+    done < <(find "$prefix" -type f -print0)
 }
 
 # XXX: This should ultimately use fixupOutputHooks but we currently don't have
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index ae19c6d650deb4..76564b38c01df4 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -81,8 +81,7 @@ with pkgs;
     { deps = [ autoconf264 automake111x gettext libtool ]; }
     ../build-support/setup-hooks/autoreconf.sh;
 
-  autoPatchelfHook = makeSetupHook
-    { name = "auto-patchelf-hook"; deps = [ file ]; }
+  autoPatchelfHook = makeSetupHook { name = "auto-patchelf-hook"; }
     ../build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh;
 
   ensureNewerSourcesHook = { year }: makeSetupHook {}