diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/emacs/generic.nix b/pkgs/build-support/emacs/generic.nix
index 1b81dbcf9ed7..e3d1505dde87 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/emacs/generic.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/emacs/generic.nix
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation ({
     addEmacsVars "$out"
 
     find $out/share/emacs -type f -name '*.el' -print0 \
-      | xargs -0 -n 1 -I {} -P $NIX_BUILD_CORES sh -c \
+      | xargs -0 -I {} -n 1 -P $NIX_BUILD_CORES sh -c \
           "emacs --batch --eval '(setq large-file-warning-threshold nil)' -f batch-native-compile {} || true"
   '';
 }