diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/elfutils-0.185-static-inline.patch b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/elfutils-0.185-static-inline.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ec1aaf47a33
--- /dev/null
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/elfutils-0.185-static-inline.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+https://bugs.gentoo.org/794601
+--- a/src/elflint.c
++++ b/src/elflint.c
+@@ -3434,7 +3434,7 @@ buffer_pos (Elf_Data *data, const unsigned char *p)
+   return p - (const unsigned char *) data->d_buf;
+ }
+ 
+-inline size_t
++static inline size_t
+ buffer_left (Elf_Data *data, const unsigned char *p)
+ {
+   return (const unsigned char *) data->d_buf + data->d_size - p;
diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/package.py
index 3786bb0dc49..4e17d6e4d0f 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/elfutils/package.py
@@ -54,6 +54,8 @@ class Elfutils(AutotoolsPackage, SourcewarePackage):
     variant('debuginfod', default=False,
             description='Enable libdebuginfod support.')
 
+    patch('elfutils-0.185-static-inline.patch', when='@0.185')
+
     depends_on('bzip2', type='link', when='+bzip2')
     depends_on('xz',    type='link', when='+xz')
     depends_on('zlib',  type='link')