diff --git a/hack/make-rules/clean.sh b/hack/make-rules/clean.sh
index 7e45ef44c44..9305c8df6c2 100755
--- a/hack/make-rules/clean.sh
+++ b/hack/make-rules/clean.sh
@@ -26,9 +26,6 @@ CLEAN_PATTERNS=(
   "doc_tmp"
   "((?!staging\/src\/k8s\.io\/apiextensions-apiserver\/pkg\/generated\/openapi).)*/zz_generated.openapi.go"
   "test/e2e/generated/bindata.go"
-  # TODO(bentheelder): remove this pattern after bazel is not in any supported releases
-  # see: https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/2420
-  "bazel-.*"
 )
 
 for pattern in "${CLEAN_PATTERNS[@]}"; do
diff --git a/hack/make-rules/test.sh b/hack/make-rules/test.sh
index 3b9e5520cc6..4c0015ebd62 100755
--- a/hack/make-rules/test.sh
+++ b/hack/make-rules/test.sh
@@ -37,7 +37,6 @@ kube::test::find_dirs() {
     find -L . -not \( \
         \( \
           -path './_artifacts/*' \
-          -o -path './bazel-*/*' \
           -o -path './_output/*' \
           -o -path './_gopath/*' \
           -o -path './cmd/kubeadm/test/*' \
diff --git a/hack/make-rules/update.sh b/hack/make-rules/update.sh
index 79756a698d6..b41e6191ea8 100755
--- a/hack/make-rules/update.sh
+++ b/hack/make-rules/update.sh
@@ -52,7 +52,6 @@ BASH_TARGETS="
 	update-generated-docs
 	update-generated-swagger-docs
 	update-openapi-spec
-	update-bazel
 	update-gofmt"
 
 for t in ${BASH_TARGETS}; do
diff --git a/hack/update-bazel.sh b/hack/update-bazel.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index c45ab3b6f0a..00000000000
--- a/hack/update-bazel.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Copyright 2016 The Kubernetes Authors.
-#
-# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
-# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
-# You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-# limitations under the License.
-
-set -o errexit
-set -o nounset
-set -o pipefail
-
-KUBE_ROOT=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/..
-
-# delete all bazel related files not in vendor/
-find "${KUBE_ROOT}" \
-  \( \
-    -name BUILD \
-    -o -name BUILD.bazel \
-    -o -name '*.bzl' \
-  \) \
-  -not \
-  \( \
-    -path "${KUBE_ROOT}"'/vendor*' \
-  \) \
-  -delete
-
-# remove additional one-off bazel related files
-# NOTE: most of these will be pairs of symlinked location in "${KUBE_ROOT}/"
-# and the actual location in "${KUBE_ROOT}/build/root/"
-rm -f \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/build/root/BUILD.root" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/WORKSPACE" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/build/root/WORKSPACE" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/.bazelrc" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/build/root/.bazelrc" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/.bazelversion" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/build/root/.bazelversion" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/.kazelcfg.json" \
-  "${KUBE_ROOT}/build/root/.kazelcfg.json"
-
diff --git a/hack/verify-bazel.sh b/hack/verify-bazel.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index fc83ddbc952..00000000000
--- a/hack/verify-bazel.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,47 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Copyright 2016 The Kubernetes Authors.
-#
-# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
-# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
-# You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-# limitations under the License.
-
-# This script checks whether removal of bazel related files is still needed.
-# If so: run `hack/update-bazel.sh` to actually remove them.
-#
-# Usage: `hack/verify-bazel.sh`.
-
-set -o errexit
-set -o nounset
-set -o pipefail
-
-KUBE_ROOT=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/..
-export KUBE_ROOT
-source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/init.sh"
-
-_tmpdir="$(kube::realpath "$(mktemp -d -t verify-bazel.XXXXXX)")"
-kube::util::trap_add "chmod -R u+rw ${_tmpdir} && rm -rf ${_tmpdir}" EXIT
-
-_tmp_gopath="${_tmpdir}/go"
-_tmp_kuberoot="${_tmp_gopath}/src/k8s.io/kubernetes"
-mkdir -p "${_tmp_kuberoot}/.."
-cp -a "${KUBE_ROOT}" "${_tmp_kuberoot}/.."
-
-cd "${_tmp_kuberoot}"
-GOPATH="${_tmp_gopath}" PATH="${_tmp_gopath}/bin:${PATH}" ./hack/update-bazel.sh
-
-diff=$(diff -Naupr -x '_output' "${KUBE_ROOT}" "${_tmp_kuberoot}" || true)
-
-if [[ -n "${diff}" ]]; then
-  echo "${diff}" >&2
-  echo >&2
-  echo "Run ./hack/update-bazel.sh" >&2
-  exit 1
-fi