imrazor I'm afraid not, at least most likely.
It seems VMware has forgot about its users who wish to run Apple hardware. I have the ONLY supported hardware (Mac Pro 6,1) on the correct firmware listed for 6.5u1 and I cannot even get the Thunderbolt to Gigabit adapters to function. This is most odd because for one, the two onboard NIC work just fine (sort of but that's another matter) and are the same vendor and hardware ID of BCM577xx as the adapters yet the adapters - or Thunderbolt 2 adapter essentially is just a direct connection to the PCI bus. This means that the adapters should be instantly recognized no different than the onboard NIC. I found no errors or anything unusual in the vmkernel.log nor using dmesg. They just weren't there.
This is a major disappointment because the only means I have read of successful use of anything (and I do have a MacMini but after a year of use, is really not suited for ESXi), is if you are running 6.0. I'm not entirely sure it will even function with 6u3 either. lamw has his blog at virtuallyghetto and even he has yet to comment back to me. I have access to licensing from when I was at Dell, but I may end up having to put my corporate muscle of a Fortune 11 behind it and run a supported license to get VMware SE to remedy the wonky issues that should be supported. It baffles me that I went as far as to purchase a newer version, then after research with Duo Labs - I find out that the firmware or EFI is not supported. Then, I actually DID manage to still find a model that has the exact specified EFI version and yet - 6.5u1 does not function as supported. There are rumors that VMware has totally dropped support for the last remaining supported hardware since Xserve, which is the Mac Pro 2013 model and blames that on Apple. I can understand a portion of that, Apple has no vested interest in working with VMware and vice versa so it's quid pro quo. The more likely answer is that Apple does not find this in their best interest, as they want you to run THEIR OS first and then run Fusion on it - ensuring they can patch the EFI as needed and ensure they have access to you via AppleID. VMware also has no interest because Apple is a small market for them and they likely have to pry details from Apple to make progress as well.
It's possible you might get somewhere with 6.0 if you haven't already allowed macOS 10.13 High Sierra on your MacMini. If you did, you bricked it already with their security updates my friend. This is the unfortunate state of these two companies. I'll publish my security white paper in the coming month should I not receive a response from VMware on what IS actually supported from their HCL and go from there. I speculate that VMware would prefer to lose anyone running the free ESXi but maybe I can get a change with true paid license or litigation if they don't live up to their end of the bargain on the HCL.
