In fairness, that's probably more due to the novelty of the disaster, more so than whoever was actually on board.
A refugee boat sinking is a tragedy, but it's also not novel in the eyes of the media (and might be difficult to report on, depending on local laws). It happens with enough regularity that it's considered another tragedy, in much the same way that America doesn't report all their mass shootings (they tend to have one for almost every day of the year), or how the local paper usually doesn't report every robbery and homicide.
The submarine incident is a bit more like a plane crash by comparison, which is rare and novel enough that it's worth reporting on, irrespective of whoever is on board. Particularly with the other facts being dug up, which only added fuel to the fire.
Hasn't he almost always been like that? It just helped that it wasn't aimed at users before, but either controversial people, or something that could at least be excused.
His database-editing negative comments talking about him wasn't anything less controversial, or indicative of a thick skin.
It might be less his "saving Reddit", and more Elon Musk and Twitter that might be doing it. He basically proved that as a billionaire CEO, you can waltz in and do whatever you like. Even if it's unpopular, a big platform (like Twitter) isn't going to implode immediately, so he can just squeeze out what money he can, and make out reasonably wealthy (or at least, that's the idea), in spite of user unpopularity. "Saving Reddit" seems more like a flimsy justification.