diff --git a/clang-tools-extra/clang-tidy/tool/run-clang-tidy.py b/clang-tools-extra/clang-tidy/tool/run-clang-tidy.py
index 2b5e78b38f01..4272ae0957fe 100755
--- a/clang-tools-extra/clang-tidy/tool/run-clang-tidy.py
+++ b/clang-tools-extra/clang-tidy/tool/run-clang-tidy.py
@@ -277,7 +277,6 @@ def main():
     tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
 
   # Build up a big regexy filter from all command line arguments.
-  args.files = [re.escape(f) for f in args.files]
   file_name_re = re.compile('|'.join(args.files))
 
   return_code = 0