diff --git a/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh b/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh
index 55f493d83b8f..c9e5dc068e85 100755
--- a/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh
+++ b/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh
@@ -79,8 +79,13 @@ done | tar -c -f - -T - | tar -xf - -C "${tmpdir}"
 rm -f "${tmpdir}/include/generated/utsversion.h"
 
 # Remove comments except SDPX lines
-find "${tmpdir}" -type f -print0 |
-	xargs -0 -P8 -n1 perl -pi -e 'BEGIN {undef $/;}; s/\/\*((?!SPDX).)*?\*\///smg;'
+# Use a temporary file to store directory contents to prevent find/xargs from
+# seeing temporary files created by perl.
+find "${tmpdir}" -type f -print0 > "${tmpdir}.contents.txt"
+xargs -0 -P8 -n1 \
+	perl -pi -e 'BEGIN {undef $/;}; s/\/\*((?!SPDX).)*?\*\///smg;' \
+	< "${tmpdir}.contents.txt"
+rm -f "${tmpdir}.contents.txt"
 
 # Create archive and try to normalize metadata for reproducibility.
 tar "${KBUILD_BUILD_TIMESTAMP:+--mtime=$KBUILD_BUILD_TIMESTAMP}" \