I read in a book about China by New Yorker magazines China expert [1] and he said that up to a third of Chinese citizens are either party members, part of youth groups, or work directly for a CCP owned company.
So it’s not everyone but it’s a lot. The actual CCP membership itself is much lower though. It’s more like an octopus in their society.
The article mentioned that Tencent and Baidu CEOs are not CCP party members. It's not a big deal, one way or the other. Journalist and internet pundits simply like to play it up. Most of us don't understand much of the workings of the CCP, partly due to deliberate intransparency partly due to the language barrier. So it's fertile ground for all kinds of baseless speculation.
Even without language barrier, I think most of it is just the nature of politics and holding positions of power. It's not like many of us have a very good understanding of the inner workings of the higher cadres in the (D) and (R) parties, or of the leadership teams / boardrooms of large companies either.
It doesn't mean much more than that some American CEO is a member of the (R) or (D) party. The CCP has 90 million members, it's not some hugely exclusionary club, though relatively speaking a bit more exclusionary than the (R) and (D) party in the US with respectively 33M and 45M members.
As mentioned in the article, the CEOs of the other tech giants Tencent and Baidu are not members. It's simply not a huge deal one way or the other.
So it’s not everyone but it’s a lot. The actual CCP membership itself is much lower though. It’s more like an octopus in their society.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Age-Ambition-Chasing-Fortune-Truth/dp...