diff --git a/changelog/62235.fixed b/changelog/62235.fixed
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a38c9e127d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/62235.fixed
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix salt-ssh not detecting `platform-python` as a valid interpreter on EL8
diff --git a/salt/client/ssh/__init__.py b/salt/client/ssh/__init__.py
index 5e557c51da1..0bba93421dd 100644
--- a/salt/client/ssh/__init__.py
+++ b/salt/client/ssh/__init__.py
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ if [ "$SUDO" ] && [ "$SUDO_USER" ]
 then SUDO="$SUDO -u $SUDO_USER"
 fi
 EX_PYTHON_INVALID={EX_THIN_PYTHON_INVALID}
-PYTHON_CMDS="python3 python27 python2.7 python26 python2.6 python2 python"
+PYTHON_CMDS="python3 python27 python2.7 python26 python2.6 python2 python /usr/libexec/platform-python"
 for py_cmd in $PYTHON_CMDS
 do
     if command -v "$py_cmd" >/dev/null 2>&1 && "$py_cmd" -c "import sys; sys.exit(not (sys.version_info >= (2, 6)));"