diff --git a/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd/initrd.nix b/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd/initrd.nix
index 23b9e232c64d..65caee745124 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd/initrd.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/system/boot/systemd/initrd.nix
@@ -132,13 +132,20 @@ let
   initialRamdisk = pkgs.makeInitrdNG {
     name = "initrd-${kernel-name}";
     inherit (config.boot.initrd) compressor compressorArgs prepend;
-    inherit (cfg) strip;
 
     contents = lib.filter ({ source, ... }: !lib.elem source cfg.suppressedStorePaths) cfg.storePaths;
   };
 
 in
 {
+  imports = [
+    (lib.mkRemovedOptionModule [ "boot" "initrd" "systemd" "strip" ] ''
+      The option to strip ELF files in initrd has been removed.
+      It only saved ~1MiB of initramfs size, but caused a few issues
+      like unloadable kernel modules.
+    '')
+  ];
+
   options.boot.initrd.systemd = {
     enable = mkEnableOption "systemd in initrd" // {
       description = ''
@@ -208,19 +215,6 @@ in
       default = [ ];
     };
 
-    strip = mkOption {
-      description = ''
-        Whether to completely strip executables and libraries copied to the initramfs.
-
-        Setting this to false may save on the order of 30MiB on the
-        machine building the system (by avoiding a binutils
-        reference), at the cost of ~1MiB of initramfs size. This puts
-        this option firmly in the territory of micro-optimisation.
-      '';
-      type = types.bool;
-      default = true;
-    };
-
     extraBin = mkOption {
       description = ''
         Tools to add to /bin
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng-tool.nix b/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng-tool.nix
index 9097728fe7a9..c373530285c7 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng-tool.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng-tool.nix
@@ -1,10 +1,6 @@
 {
   rustPlatform,
   lib,
-  makeWrapper,
-  patchelf,
-  glibc,
-  binutils,
 }:
 
 rustPlatform.buildRustPackage {
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng.nix b/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng.nix
index 4d2ad14a023b..da2941cdd6f2 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng.nix
@@ -20,8 +20,6 @@ in
   # Name of the derivation (not of the resulting file!)
   name ? "initrd",
 
-  strip ? true,
-
   # Program used to compress the cpio archive; use "cat" for no compression.
   # This can also be a function which takes a package set and returns the path to the compressor,
   # such as `pkgs: "${pkgs.lzop}/bin/lzop"`.
@@ -95,15 +93,10 @@ runCommand name
     passAsFile = [ "contents" ];
     contents = builtins.toJSON contents;
 
-    nativeBuildInputs =
-      [
-        makeInitrdNGTool
-        cpio
-      ]
-      ++ lib.optional makeUInitrd ubootTools
-      ++ lib.optional strip binutils;
-
-    STRIP = if strip then "${pkgsBuildHost.binutils.targetPrefix}strip" else null;
+    nativeBuildInputs = [
+      makeInitrdNGTool
+      cpio
+    ] ++ lib.optional makeUInitrd ubootTools;
   })
   ''
     mkdir -p ./root/var/empty
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng/src/main.rs b/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng/src/main.rs
index 149c5393e35a..85449c7eb027 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng/src/main.rs
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/kernel/make-initrd-ng/src/main.rs
@@ -189,32 +189,6 @@ fn copy_file<
 
     if let Ok(Object::Elf(e)) = Object::parse(&contents) {
         add_dependencies(source, e, &contents, &dlopen, queue)?;
-
-        // Make file writable to strip it
-        let mut permissions = fs::metadata(&target)
-            .wrap_err_with(|| format!("failed to get metadata for {:?}", target))?
-            .permissions();
-        permissions.set_mode(permissions.mode() | 0o200);
-        fs::set_permissions(&target, permissions.clone())
-            .wrap_err_with(|| format!("failed to set read-write permissions for {:?}", target))?;
-
-        // Strip further than normal
-        if let Ok(strip) = env::var("STRIP") {
-            if !Command::new(strip)
-                .arg("--strip-all")
-                .arg(OsStr::new(&target))
-                .output()?
-                .status
-                .success()
-            {
-                println!("{:?} was not successfully stripped.", OsStr::new(&target));
-            }
-        }
-
-        // Remove writable permissions
-        permissions.set_mode(permissions.mode() & 0o555);
-        fs::set_permissions(&target, permissions)
-            .wrap_err_with(|| format!("failed to remove writable permissions for {:?}", target))?;
     };
 
     Ok(())